Tips on how to cope mentally with COVID-19
SALISBURY, Md. – During these uncertain times, the Child and Family Center in Salisbury is helping people cope by offering tips on their Facebook and website like how to manage things like anxiety during this pandemic.
According to psychologist Dr. Sam Scott, they started doing these tips a few weeks ago when things started to shut down because of the pandemic.
“We just thought as a team it would to every day or every couple of days post an answer to some of the more commonly asked questions that we were getting,” said Dr. Scott.
Thursday night Dr. Scott joined 47 ABC via Zoom video chat to dive a little deeper into some of the tips and answer some more questions. Starting with a big one, is it okay to freak out?
“It’s okay if you need to break down or let the emotions out then you should because it’s your body’s way of saying I’m not dealing with this and use that information,” said Dr. Scott, while adding that you need to set limits on those break downs.
“One thing people don’t realize is that you can set limits on your emotional breakdown. So while I’m encouraging people to identify how they’re feeling and let their emotions out, you also have to say okay I’m going to take 30 minutes to myself, I’m going to cry, I’m going to take a bath or whatever I need to do and then in 30 minutes I’m going to get myself together and I’m going to do something that makes me feel better,” said Dr. Scott.
Dr. Scott also gave us insight on how to talk about what’s going on with our children, with the caveat that if they’re younger, there’s no need to tell them more than they need to know.
“I think at the basic level we just say that you know there’s a lot of really smart people who are working on this and they’re telling us that we just need to stay inside right now so that we can get through this and make it go away faster and just keep everyone healthy,” said Dr. Scott.
And last but not least, we also talked about how to stay calm and not start freaking about the ‘what-ifs’, such as ‘what if my parents get sick?’ or ‘what if things aren’t okay by summer?’
“Just know that if you’re put in that situation you will handle it then, but worrying about something before it even does happen is just an unhelpful emotion it’s going to make you crazy,” said Dr. Scott.
