Kristina Chemerskaya, a People partner at HYS Enterprise, decided to share with you how to cope with emotional stress in the current situation. These tips are prepared in collaboration with Ilya Bachurin, a social psychologist. In a nutshell about Kristina’s background: she has a Master’s degree in psychology; studied and worked at the company of Frank Pucelik, the co-founder of neuro-linguistic programming. Also, she conducts training, seminars, and private psychological consultations. 

Each of us has our way of reacting to a negative because stress is an inevitable part of life. But now we have to adapt faster than before, and be more careful about our health, not only physical but also mental because it affects our mood and well-being. Stress is a normal adaptive reaction of an organism to emerging changes. Quarantine, switching to remote work and disturbing news from the media can significantly affect our productivity and well-being. But paradoxically, it is crises that make us stronger, help us become more resilient and effective in any situation.

What should you do with this now? Develop qualities that will help you to be flexible and adaptive.

1. Organize Your Schedule

A planned day will allow you to be more productive in business and to control your anxieties and fears. Your work and specific tasks won’t leave the place for them.

2. Move 

Moving is living. Those who spend more than six hours a day at a desk without moving feel more stressed and anxious than those who take breaks for exercise. The hormones of joy, serotonin and endorphin, which are produced during exercise, will make you calmer and help you relax. In an enclosed space, you can use various online training sessions or just sit up and count steps from the desk to the kitchen and back :) The main thing is to change your pose and move during the day.

3. Find and Keep Your Resource State

The resource state is when you have enough energy to solve the problems and to be happy. When your resource state is stable, problems and tasks aren’t scary. Keep in mind what activities bring you joy and take time for them.

4. Chat with Your Like-Minded People

Many of us were physically separated by COVID-19, but we can communicate in other ways. Communication and warm friendships allow us to better cope with stress. If you are a team leader, it is important to regularly hold online meetings with the team, especially during remote work. Discuss tasks, monitor mood, and support. Such communication helps to build a mental state and team unity.

5. Face Your Fears

If the thought of something inevitable and terrifying doesn’t leave you, don’t hide from it, but try to describe it. After all, fear is an imaginary danger that’s similar to real danger for our mind. The more vivid imagination you have, the more problems arising in the fantasy fixated on repetition. You should never be afraid to bring your fears to the end. 

For example, ask yourself ‘What happens if it really happens?’. You’ll understand that there is nothing to fear and the problem is far-fetched, or you’ll see a real danger and then try to prevent an undesirable future. In any case, life will continue.

6. Discover the Meaning of the Situation for Yourself

There are several positions of reality perception. The passive one is when it’s like someone else controls your life. You may ask yourself ‘Why is this happening with me?’, ‘For what?’, ‘Where is justice, am I ..?’. There is also an active position. Instead of questioning ‘Why?’, you can say ‘This is happening to me now to make me learn/understand/grow/become wiser/stronger…’

Any situation is neutral until we give it a meaningful emotional connotation. So it lies in our power to choose what to do with reality: to fight, to take a passive position, to run away or…your choice.

7. Choose Your Goals Beyond Crisis

Imagine your life in a year, five, ten years, what are you doing there? What have you achieved? Based on this, what conclusions would you like to draw, what kind of work with the team to conduct, what goals to set and what results to achieve in the future? Now is the time to set goals adjusted for the wind of change and hold your course.

 

We wish you the strength of mind, good health and accomplish goals. By taking care of ourselves, our loved ones and our team, we will be able to survive the time of uncertainty, draw conclusions and move on. Let’s become stronger and wiser.