To help you, the community, in managing your stress, we at Zephyr surveyed our employees for their top stress management strategies as they specifically apply to this COVID-19 situation. This is a continuation of our ongoing series. (Read part 1 of the series here.)
If you have specific questions about any of these (or want to contribute your own), please shoot us an email and we will reply the best that we can. Also, search our media and articles page for the topic that most interests you and perhaps you will find a podcast or video about it. And, of course, you can always make an appointment with us.
We understand that this list is neither comprehensive nor applicable to everyone, so please take what you can or, if you have more to offer, please do so and we will add them in! Also please share this list with your friends, neighbors, and family because it sure doesn’t do any good locked up here on this page by itself. We all deserve peace and healing right now and Zephyr is honored to be a small part of that.
Grouped by staff member and in no particular order, here is our gift to you, humor included:
Try to start each day with some way to move my body (yoga, pilates, or dance videos/live streams).
Try one new recipe per day.
Take at least 5 minutes to sit on my patio and drink my coffee/tea.
FaceTime/video chat with one family member or friend each day (fulfilling my extrovert needs).
Try to read one book per week.
Spend half a day each week dedicated to cleaning/laundry/organizing so my space feels clean and relaxing for the rest of the week.
Try to match my schedule with my roommate so we have at least one similar break to laugh/vent/play with our kitties.
Find one piece of positive news each day and do my best to share it with others.
Do a face mask and/or take a long shower or bubble bath after stressful days.
Have A LOT of compassion for myself if my routine gets screwed up and try again the next day.
Physical movement (yoga, weight lifting, Tabata)
Mindfulness (grounding, meditation, yogic breathing)
Get outside (bike, dog walk, hike, coffee at sunrise/wine at sunset)
Connect virtually with people daily (Zoom, FaceTime, text, calls)
Interact with animals (walks, fetch, cuddling)
Routine (Have a schedule and follow it. Rise, shower, dress, work, play, fitness, animal time, kid time, Netflix time, meditate, bedtime)
Trail running/hiking. Getting outside and exercise has been the best thing for my mental health during self-quarantine so far.
Reading. I personally enjoy reading fiction to be able to escape into another world. Stephen King is my favorite but really any horror/sci-fi/supernatural literature is my favorite. I always read before I go to bed to get my mind off of what has been going on in the world and make sure not to engage in news/social media before sleep so my mind is not swirling in those thoughts.
Drawing/painting. I love to draw and be able to create something out of nothing straight from my mind and makes the time go by faster than anything else. I also have started to get into painting by copying album covers onto tiny canvases to learn how to paint better as I am still new to that medium.
Podcasts. There are so many podcasts out there. Besides our own, Noggin Notes, I enjoy listening to Radiolab (my all-time favorite) or horror/supernatural/true crime ones like Lore, Small Town Murder, or Astonishing Legends.
Listening/mixing music. I personally enjoy music without words or very few to be able to escape and create your own meaning in the music. Suggestions for those wondering: Tycho, ODESZA, and Tourist. I also make music of a variety of electronic genres for fun. Here’s a link to my own mixes.
We hope you got some ideas out of this post! If you enjoyed this one, check out part 1 of the series here. Stay tuned for the rest of the series, and please share this post if you enjoyed it!