DR NELLY KAMWALE: Managing stress amid conflict and uncertainty
Anxiety, PTSD, depression, and insomnia are common during times of war.
2mon agoDR NELLY KAMWALEStar-blogs
There are those days in your life when you feel too low, sometimes due to situations beyond your control.
It might be that you are having financial hardships, going through a relationship breakup or perhaps you lost a job or your loved one.
Stress is a natural response to all these difficult situations you might find yourself in.
However, you are advised to pull through and face life with hope.
The World Health Organisation defines stress as feeling troubled or threatened by life.
According to WHO, stress can be due to major threats; family violence, no school, illness, displacement from home, problems providing for your family, violence in your community and uncertainty about the future among others.
The global health agency acknowledges that everyone experiences stress at times.
It notes that a little bit of stress is not a problem but very high stress often affects the body.
"Many people get unpleasant feelings like headaches, heavy chest, shoulder and neck pain, upset stomach and tight muscles among others,” WHO says in their management of stress guide.
The WHO says in stressful situations, people get hooked on difficult thoughts and feelings and are pulled away from their values.
“We unhook by refocusing and engaging in what we are doing,” WHO says.
WHO says sometimes stressful situations and thoughts are so overpowering they turn into “emotional storms”.
“An ‘emotional storm’ means you experience intensely difficult thoughts and feelings. They are so strong they are like a mighty storm, and they can easily overpower you.”
The WHO advises that when an emotional storm appears, we must learn how to ‘ground ourselves’ through engaging with the world around and focusing on what we are doing.
The WHO has proposed five strategies that can be used as tips or techniques to cope with stress.
They include; grounding, unhooking, acting on values, being kind and lastly, making room.
Grounding
“The first step is to notice how you are feeling and what you are thinking. Next, slow down and connect with your body,” WHO says.
“Slow your breathing, empty your lungs completely then let them refill as slowly as possible. Slowly press your feet onto the floor, stretch your arms, or slowly press your hands together,” WHO adds.
According to WHO, the next step in grounding is to refocus on the world around.
“Notice where you are, what are five things you can see? What are three or four things you can hear? What can you smell? Notice where you are and what you are doing. Touch your knees, or the surface beneath you, or any object you can reach. Notice what it feels like under your fingers,” it says.
WHO said grounding does not make emotional storms disappear, it just keeps you safe, until the storm passes.
Unhooking
The WHO says that when we get hooked by difficult thoughts and feelings, we tend to make ‘away moves’ – moving away from our values.
It says the first two steps in unhooking are; Notice and Name.”
The organisation said the first step in ‘unhooking’ oneself is to notice that you have been hooked, the second step is to name what hooked you.
“So naming begins by silently saying, ‘here is a thought’ or ‘here is a feeling’, WHO says.
The next step proposed is to refocus on what you are doing – whether you are cooking, eating, playing, or washing, and to engage fully in that activity; to pay full attention to whoever is with you and whatever you are doing.
“It is natural to have difficult thoughts and feelings appear when we are stressed. This happens to everyone!” WHO in the stress management guide says.
Acting on your values
According to WHO, your values describe what kind of person you want to be; and how you want to treat yourself and others and the world around you.
The WHO says goals describe what you are trying to get while values describe the sort of person you want to be.
“The more you focus on your own actions, the more you can influence the immediate world around you; the people and situations you encounter every day,” WHO says.
“Values go both ways; towards yourself and towards others. Then you aim to live those values towards both yourself and others.”
According to the organisation’s stress guide, there are three approaches to any difficult situation; 1 Leave. 2 Change what can be changed, accept the pain that cannot be changed and live by your values. 3 Give up and move away from your values.
Being kind
“Often, we get hooked by unkind thoughts, unkind thoughts are natural and may happen often. But it is not helpful to be hooked by them, because when we get hooked by these unkind thoughts, we get pulled away from our values,” WHO says.
To be able to not be hooked by unkind thoughts, WHO reiterates the need to notice and name the thoughts and to unhook from them.
“How do you feel when you are struggling, suffering, in pain, and someone reaches out to you with kindness, caring and understanding? Even in the most difficult situations, there are ways we can act on our values of kindness and caring," WHO says.
The WHO says even tiny little actions of kindness can make a difference. This includes kind words.
“Everyone needs a friend. Everyone needs kindness. And if you are kind to yourself, you will have more energy to help others, and more motivation to be kind to others, so everyone benefits. Like all values, kindness goes both ways.”
Making room
The WHO says our thoughts and feelings are like the weather, noting that can learn to be like the sky, and make room for the ‘bad weather’ of our difficult thoughts and feelings without being hurt by it.
It often helps to imagine a painful feeling as an object, WHO says.
The organisation reiterates that trying to push away difficult thoughts and feelings often does not work very well, instead, makes room for them.
You are then advised to allow the painful feeling or thought to come and go like the weather.
Instead of fighting with the thought or feeling, allow it to move through you, just like the weather moves through the sky, the WHO says.
"If you are not fighting with the weather, then you will have more time and energy to engage with the world around you and do things that are important to you.”
