Tips for dealing with long-term stress, aka quarantine.

Intro: Long-term stress can deactivate your prefrontal cortex...the “thinker,” if you will. Most of our strategies for dealing with stress involve the cortex, so it is super important that we know how to turn it back on.

You turn on your cortex by communicating to your body that it is safe. You can’t just self-talk your way into a calmed down brain— because your cortex is off. Self-talk works better with minor stressors, not big existential and physical threats. So ways to turn your cortex on:

1. Deep breaths. Deep breaths signal to your brain that actually, we are ok. You may be doing this automatically; and if not, just stop and notice when you feel like maybe the stress is getting you, taking 2-3 big, sighing breaths, and do the next thing.

2. Exercise. We have a lot of extra adrenaline right now, and it can drive us either to work frantically or to collapse and do nothing. Exercise gives the adrenaline somewhere to go and helps our bodies feel like they have “flighted” or “fighted” the situation.

3. Physical activities. The more we can pick up physical hobbies during this time, the better our bodies will be able to discharge the extra adrenaline, which leaves us with a clearer mind better able to weigh options and choose how to respond, rather than reacting.

4. Awareness. Awareness of when you are starting to act out of your limbic brain gives you the option to then do something different. We cultivate awareness by creating mental reminder flags in our lives and habits.

Starting the day with quiet can help, and then taking moments to ask, “How am I? What am I feeling? Why is it so strong? Where is God in this moment?” helps us notice when we are reacting to events around us out of fear rather than proactively and productively facing them.

5. Play. Doing activities that you enjoy, whether loud and rowdy or quiet and calming, where you can let go and be silly, activates the part of your brain needed for creativity and problem solving.

6. People. Schedule FaceTimes and video chats. Seeing another person’s face and having them respond to your stories, and responding to their stories, calms your limbic brain and turns your cortex on.

7. Alone time. Even the most flamboyant extroverts need time alone to check in with themselves. Parents will have the hardest time with this one, but simply cherishing the few moments and noticing them can make a huge difference.

Many are doing these things automatically because our bodies, when we are in a healthy place, gravitate toward what we need. And if you’re not, odds are you learned along the way that you needed hypervigilance to protect yourself. Just have some compassion and start small.