Stress Management and Coping Strategies

Republic of the Philippines
Department of Education – Region 1 – La Union Division

Commission on Diocesan Schools of La Union
PUGO CATHOLIC SCHOOL
SCHOOL ID: 400097 (DepEd) / 0100086 (ESC)
Tavora East, Pugo, La Union
STRESS MANAGEMENT AND COPING

STRATEGIES
DURING THE PANDEMIC
OBJECTIVES:
a. To inform the students about the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19);
b. To equip the students with necessary skills to keep them physically and mentally sound
during this health crisis; and
c. To instill in them the importance of having values.
What is COVID-19?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0ZabxXmH4Y&t=28s
Latest News about the virus

 Updates (on the day of the seminar) (Vaccines, Meds …)
 Number of cases (Global and Local)
Impact of COVID-19 on Mental Health:

- According to WHO “the main psychological impact to date is elevated rates of stress or
anxiety … new impacts are introduced – especially quarantine and its effects” they added
“levels of loneliness, depression, harmful alcohol and drug use, and self-harm or suicidal
behaviors are expected to rise”.
- Stress during an infectious disease outbreak can sometimes cause the following:
o Fear and worry about your own health and the health of your loved ones, your
financial situation or job, or loss of support services you rely on.
o Changes in sleep or eating patterns.
o Difficulty sleeping or concentrating.
o Worsening of chronic health problems.
o Worsening of mental health conditions.
o Increased use of tobacco, and/or alcohol and other substances.
How to Cope with Stress:
PCS: The Heart of Formation and Transformation Guidance Office

All Rights Reserved 2020
IMPORTANT: There is no one size fits all in coping. We are all different. What works
for one doesn’t necessarily work for everyone.
(WHO, 2020)
1. GROUNDING
What is Stress?
- Feeling troubled or threatened by life
- Can be due to major threats
 Family Violence
 Illness
 No School
 Problems providing for you family
 Displaced from school
 Violence in your community
 Displaced from home
 Arguments with your family
 Uncertainty about the future
- Everyone experiences stress at times
- A little bit of stress is not a problem but very high stress often affects the body. Many
people get unpleasant feelings
o Headaches
o Not feeling hungry
o Neck and shoulder pain
o Lump in throat
o Back pain
o Upset stomach
o Heavy chest
o Tight muscles
- When they are stressed, many people …
o Cannot focus
o Get angry easily
o Cannot sit still
o Have difficulty sleeping
o Feeling sad or guilty
o Worry
o Cry
o Feel very tired
o Have changes in appetite
o Think a lot about bad things from the past or bad things we fear in the future.

- These powerful thoughts and feelings are natural part of stress. But problems can occur if
we get hooked by them.
- These difficult thoughts and feelings “hook” us and pull us away from our VALUES.
o What are VALUES?
 Deepest desires for the sort of person you want to be.
 Describe the sort of person you want to be; how you want to treat yourself
and others and the world around you.
- There are many kinds of difficult thoughts and feelings that can hook us.
- When we get hooked, our behavior changes. We often start doing things that make our
lives worse.
o We might get into arguments or fights
o We might withdraw and stay from people we love
o Or we might spend a lot of time lying in bed.
- We call these behaviors “AWAY MOVES” because when we act this way, we are
moving away from our values.
- WHAT CAN WE DO THEN:
o ENGAGE AND PAY BETTER ATTENTION!
o To engage in something means to give it your full attention
 But when hooked by thoughts or feelings, you are disengaged or
distracted.
 When we do things in an unfocused way, we often do them poorly, or
unable to enjoy the activity or feel dissatisfied.
 There are many ways to engage:
 Example, if you are drinking tea or coffee, focus your full attention
to it. You notice every single detail about it. The taste, the texture,
is it hot? smell it, sip it slowly. And when you get hooked go back
on the drink.
 But what if my feelings and stories are just so painful and I find it
hard to engaged.
 Sometimes they are overpowering and they turn into emotional
storms – when they appear you learn to “ground yourself”
 The first step in engaging is to NOTICE what you are feeling and
thinking. Next is SLOW DOWN and CONNECT with your body.
Next is REFOCUS
- GROUNDING does not make your emotional storms disappear. It just keeps you safe,
until the storm passes.
- The PURPOSE OF GROUNDING AND UNHOOKING is to help you engage in life.
- GROUNDING EXERCISE – (AUDIO)
2. UNHOOKING
- Will your difficult thoughts and feelings ever go away? But is it realistic to think we can
simply get rid of them?

- Most people try at least some of these strategies:

o Yelling
o Trying not to think about it
o Avoiding people, places or situations
o Staying in bed
o Isolating yourself
o Giving up
o Alcohol
o Tobacco
o Illicit drugs
o Starting arguments
o Blaming or criticizing oneself
 All these methods can make thoughts and feelings go away but not for
long. They will come back soon.
- Instead of trying to push them away. You stop struggling with them and whenever you
get hooked by them you unhook yourself again.
- Identify the thoughts and feelings …
- First 2 steps in unhooking:
o NOTICE
o NAME
 Notice your difficult thoughts and feelings
 Name the thoughts and feelings (silently)
 Refocus on what you are doing.
o Remember it is natural to have difficult thoughts and feelings appear when we are
stressed. This happens to everyone.
o After we NOTICED and NAMED, we can REFOCUS on the world around us.
We ENGAGED in life by noticing what we can …
- PRACTICE THESE SKILLS
3. ACTING ON YOUR VALUES

- Values describe what kind of person you want to be; how you want to treat yourself and
others and the world around you.
- Values are not goals. Goals describe what you are trying to get. Values describe the sort
of person you want to be.
- Many of your goals are impossible right now. But you can always find ways to act on
your values. The way you influence the world around you is through your ACTIONS.
o ACTIONS are what you do with your arms and hands and legs and feet, and what
you say with your mouth.
o The more you focus on your own actions the more you influence the immediate
world around you: the people and situations you encounter every day.

o Ask yourself: Do my actions support my values? Are your actions moving you
towards or away from your values?
o Often, as soon as thinking about taking action, difficult thoughts and feelings
appear, and easily hook us. If so, NOTICE and NAME them. And ENGAGE with
the world around you.
- HOW TO APPROACH DIFFICULT SITUATIONS?
a. Leave
b. Change what can be changed, accept the pain that cannot be changed and live by your
values
c. Give up and move away from your values
4. BEING KIND
- No matter how bad the situation gets, REMEMBER TO BE KIND TO YOURSELF
AND TO OTHERS.
5. MAKE ROOM
- Unhooking is one way to stop struggling with our thoughts and feelings.
- There is another way called MAKING ROOM.
- To learn this skill, it s useful to think about the sky. No matter ho severe the weather, the
sky has room for it! The sky can never be harmed or hurt by the weather; wether it is
intense heat or freezing cold. And sooner or later, the weather always changes. And we
can learn to be like the sky, and make room for the “bad weather” of our thoughts and
feelings without being hurt by it.
- First, silently NOTICE and NAME. Notice these thoughts and feelings with
CURIOUSITY. Imagine these thoughts and feelings are like the weather and you are like
the sky. Focus your attention on a difficult thought or feeling. NOTICE and NAME it,
then observe it with CURIOUDITY. As you do this, breathe out slowly. Then once the
lungs are empty, pause for a count of 2 then breathe in slowly, and imagine your breath
flows into and around your pain. Imagine this anyway you like. Breathing out, empty our
lungs. Breathing slowly. Breathing into and around your pain. Opening up and making
room for it. Allowing it to be there.
- It often helps to imagine a painful feeling as an object.
References
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020, May 19). Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-
life-coping/managing-stress-anxiety.html

World Health Organization. (2020, June 15). Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) [Video].
YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0ZabxXmH4Y&t=28s
World Health Organization. (2020, June 3). Mental health and COVID-19.
WHO/Europe. https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/health-emergencies/coronavirus-covid-
19/technical-guidance/mental-health-and-covid-19
World Health Organization. (2020). Doing what matters in times of stress: an illustrated
guide (1st ed.). https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1276043/retrieve


Stress Management and Coping Strategies

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Stress Management and Coping Strategies

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Republic of the Philippines

Department of Education – Region 1 – La Union Division

STRESS MANAGEMENT AND COPING

Latest News about the virus

Impact of COVID-19 on Mental Health:

o Changes in sleep or eating patterns.

o Difficulty sleeping or concentrating.

o Worsening of chronic health problems.

o Worsening of mental health conditions.

o Increased use of tobacco, and/or alcohol and other substances.

How to Cope with Stress:

PCS: The Heart of Formation and Transformation Guidance Office

PCS: The Heart of Formation and Transformation Guidance Office

PCS: The Heart of Formation and Transformation Guidance Office

- Most people try at least some of these strategies:

3. ACTING ON YOUR VALUES

PCS: The Heart of Formation and Transformation Guidance Office

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-

PCS: The Heart of Formation and Transformation Guidance Office

World Health Organization. (2020, June 15). Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) [Video].

World Health Organization. (2020, June 3). Mental health and COVID-19.

World Health Organization. (2020). Doing what matters in times of stress: an illustrated

PCS: The Heart of Formation and Transformation Guidance Office

You might also like