The coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to grow and affect all the world. Logically, you begin to feel more stressed. Information is rapidly changing and can be confusing, overwhelming, and even scary. You may experience fear, stress, and anxiety.
Here are some useful tips to avoid coronavirus stress and improve your life.
Nutrition: Fruits and Vegetables
If you are stressed, the central nervous system releases adrenaline and cortisol, which affects your mood. Also, stress can kill the appetite, but the release of the hormone cortisol can cause fat and sugar cravings.
Research also suggests that high cortisol combined with high sugar consumption may prompt the deposition of fat around our internal organs. A diet high in a variety of nutrients can both protect health and provide more physical energy.
You need to eat more fruits and vegetables.
Massage and Stretches: Relax
Because stress causes muscles to tense, being stressed out can create tension headaches, backaches, etc. You can avoid these symptoms with stretches, massage, or warm baths. You can try progressive muscle relaxation to reduce anxiety and improve mental health.
Meditate: Benefits of Meditation
Many reports show that mindful meditation can reduce psychological stress and anxiety. To get started, set aside five minutes in a quiet place to sit and breathe. Focus on the present moment. Free your mind and avoid negative emotions.
Sleep Better: Activity and Relaxation
Daytime stress affects nighttime sleep. Try to have a consistent sleep routine that allows time to wind down before lights out. Meditation and relaxation can help with insomnia.
Also, avoid caffeine and alcohol in the late afternoon and evening. Blue light can suppress the sleepy hormone melatonin (checking social media may ramp up your emotions.) Also, physical activity can improve sleep, especially for middle-aged adults.
More Physical Activity:
The activity can not only improve sleep, but it can win stress. Studies show that working adults who participated in moderate physical activity had not much stress as working adults who did not participate.
Physical activity may also help to avoid the negative effects of stress, including the impact of stress on the immune system.
Adding physical activity needn’t be expensive or complex: A 30-minute walk or a dance session in the living room can do the trick.
Go Out To Nature:
Studies have found that green space improves mood. Effective Tip. Even nature videos can speed recovery from stress. Nature can calm your mind.
Keep Your Common Activities: Humor and Laugh
When life gets overwhelming, people often leave their common or pleasure activities first. Even when time is tight, look for opportunities to do something for yourself, whether that means reading a novel, singing, dancing, or watch your favorite comedy on tv.
Humor and laughter can benefit both mental and physical health. Humor is the best medicine!
Reframe your thinking: Emotions and Thoughts
One of the most effective treatments for stress and anxiety is cognitive-behavioral therapy or CBT. You need to understand that our thoughts influence our emotions, which influences our behaviors. (We are emotional creatures!)
Reframing your thoughts can help manage your emotions, reducing feelings of stress.
Tip: If you think and imagine worst-case scenarios, stop and put your mind elsewhere. Avoid negative thoughts and use humor to improve your life.
Ask a Doctor:
If you feel overwhelmed and self-help isn’t helping, look for a psychologist or doctor who can help you learn how to manage your stress effectively. Change your environment and change your thoughts.
The coronavirus is very big trouble and dangerous but it’s not the end of the world. You can win the pandemic if you think positively, use humor, and protect yourself and your family. Positive psychology is your great advantage to improve your life. Start Now!
Coronavirus Effect: Stay Positive and Optimistic – Become a Winner
With all the tragic things that are happening in the world as a result of the coronavirus, now might seem like an unusual time to talk about being positive. Staying positive is a very important tip to win coronavirus and every difficulty in your life.
Now, more than ever is the time for you to be proactive about creating small moments of happiness in your daily life, psychology research shows that positive emotions help you to undo the negative effects of stress.
Always try to stay optimist and positive
The positivity starts with positive thoughts. It is one of the simplest but most effective ways to build a more positive outlook.
When you are bombarded with negativity, process the thoughts and feelings that arise in the situation first. Next, ask yourself what is one thing that is positive or good about this situation?
Can you find even one opportunity within the situation? Thinking about the good that can come out of it is better than beating yourself because you think you sucked.
Cultivate a positive environment.
Negativity sucks your energy. But the good news is that being positive is contagious.
So be careful who you spend time with. Further, you have to be wary of the input you get from TV, the internet, magazines or newspapers, because they all will have a huge effect on your outlook.
To cultivate a positive environment, you must have influences in your life that lift you instead of dragging you down. Take the time to think about the most negative sources of information you spend time on and how you can lessen the interaction.
Focus on spending time with positive sources or people in your life.
Step back, rethink, and go slowly.
When you think, talk, eat and move carelessly and quickly, it will create more problems for you.
Additionally, stress will build up and negative thoughts start to well up.
On the other hand, slowing down will make your mind and body calm down too. It is much easier to think things through clearly when you are relaxed.
The next time you are bombarded with negative thoughts, take a step back from the hustle-bustle to find-the-optimistic perspective.
Practice a healthy lifestyle.
A healthy lifestyle starts with a good night’s sleep, nutritious foods, and exercise.
Your lifestyle has a direct impact on your mood. Have you noticed you get irritated easily when you lack sleep? Yes, that’s right.
Start your day positively. Avoid stress and negativity
When you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, it will be a precedent of how your day goes. Simply put, how you start sets the tone for the rest of your day.
So be careful about how you spend your mornings. Take the time to meditate and organize your day for a more productive workflow.
If you start your morning with stressful thoughts, negativity will ramp up quickly.
Find humor in bad situations.
Allow yourself to find humor in bad situations. When you experience difficult times, remind yourself that it will not last.
It will make for a good story later. Cracking a joke about the bad situation you are in will lighten up the mood and help you focus on the brighter side. Humor is the best way to create a perfect day!
Think of problems as opportunities.
All people have problems. But what differentiates a positive person from a pessimist is how the former approach the difficulties.
Stop describing your problems as “nightmares”. Instead, look at it as an interesting challenge.
If we can foster positive emotions, we can win every difficult situation. Positive emotions are a key resource for us during the coronavirus crisis because they can help us to win the coronavirus and everything else. It’s up to you to Win!
Learning about a virus (Coronavirus) from the news and media can be extremely alarming and confusing. When it involves your health, it is important to make sure you fully understand the cause of a virus, the symptoms, how to protect yourself, and a treatment plan for the virus.
It’s very important to know about the coronavirus so that you can learn how to protect both yourself and your family!
Don’t lose yourself in hysteria. Instead, empower yourself with factual information!
What Is Coronavirus?
Coronavirus refers to a family of viruses. The problems you have probably heard about from the coronavirus comes into play when these viruses jump to humans. It is associated with upper-respiratory issues when this leap happens and has symptoms like the common cold.
The coronavirus has made the leap from animals to humans quite a few times but oftentimes does not have fatal effects. However, there have been three major instances of when a coronavirus jumped to humans in the last century that has caused widespread panic and human fatalities.
When the virus makes the jump to humans, the primary issue is how quickly the virus can spread and how the virus progresses, making it a global health concern.
Types of Coronaviruses
The three coronaviruses that have most negatively affected human health in the 21st century are the following:
SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)
MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome)
COVID-19 (Most commonly known as Coronavirus)
SARS was first discovered in 2003. The exact origin of the virus is unknown, although scientists can say confidently that it originated in China.
The number of people that caught this virus hovers around 8,000 people and around 800 deaths. This disease had flu-like symptoms and was spread by close contact between people. The disease found its way into about 26 countries, making it a global issue.
MERS was discovered in 2012 in the Middle Eastern country of Saudi Arabia. The origin of this virus is still unknown, although it is expected to be transferred from camels.
This virus affected between 2,000-2,500 people and had a similar number of patient deaths, around 800 people, as SARS.
COVID-19, also known as the Wuhan virus, is the coronavirus that is at the forefront of people’s minds right now. This coronavirus was first found in Wuhan, China in 2019, and the number of people infected is still on the rise.
Right now, the mortality rate is about 1%. The specific animal origin is still being looked into!
How Did it Start?
COVID-19 is said to have originated from a seafood market in the city of Wuhan. This city has a population of about 11 million, which is one of the reasons the spread of the virus is so serious.
COVID-19 can be found in over 30 different countries and the virus has not yet run its course.
The major outbreaks of this virus have been in Wuhan, Italy, Spain, UK, South Korea, USA, Japan. Now it’s a dangerous worldwide disease! All places where there have been major outbreaks have taken extensive measures to contain the virus and put citizens on lockdown to avoid further spread of COVID-19.
Symptoms of Coronavirus
One of the frightening things about COVID-19 is that the symptoms are common. Some symptoms reported have been things similar to the common cold and the flu. These symptoms include a runny nose, muscle aches, a cough, shortness of breath and diarrhea.
This virus can also show up as viral pneumonia and infect either one or both lungs. Since this is viral pneumonia, it cannot be treated with normal antibiotics. More extreme cases have also caused organ failure and death.
At this stage, the antiviral drugs that doctors have for the flu are not effective against COVID-19. The severity of this virus is very much related to the immune system of the person affected. Doctors are seeing a trend that those that die from COVID-19 were already in poor health.
Because the symptoms of COVID-19 are so common, it can be confusing to people whether or not they should go to the doctor!
This is a tricky situation to be in. On one hand, you will want to receive medical attention if you are sick. On the other hand, COVID-19 is most dangerous to the fact that it can be spread so quickly so you will not want to travel and infect other people.
It is important to note that COVID-19 is spread by human to human contact. Just like the common cold, it is smart to cover your mouth if you cough or sneeze and it’s very important to wash your hands frequently.
It would be best to call your doctor instead of making an appointment right away.
The doctor can prescribe you medical advice and if you need to be seen, doctors will be able to prepare for your visit. It is important to note that if you are sick, CORVID-19 is contagious, so avoid travel as a preventative measure!
If you begin to experience symptoms like coughing, a runny nose, body aches, etc, try your best to track your symptoms.
Keep track of when your symptoms start, the changing severity of the symptoms, your diet, sleep, and more. Keeping track will help your doctor gather enough information to properly diagnose you and prescribe treatment.
If both you and your doctor determine that you will make an appointment, then the doctor will be able to run tests to rule out other common infections.
Treatments for COVID-19
At this time, there is not a prescribed medicine for COVID-19, but there are a few ways to help alleviate your symptoms and get better.
As always, if you are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 you should speak with your doctor about a treatment plan.
For COVID-19, you can treat this virus-like any other flu. You will need rest, lots of fluids, and possibly an over the counter medication to reduce a fever if you have one.
If you have the virus, you should not travel or go to work. This virus is found to spread extremely quickly and while it is not usually fatal to those with already healthy immune systems, it can be fatal if spread to those at risk like the elderly and sick.
It is also worth mentioning that you should avoid contact with any pets or animals if possible. While there are no confirmed cases of humans spreading the virus to animals, it is still a possibility.
How to Protect Yourself From COVID-19
Now that you know what COVID-19 is, how it is spread, the symptoms and the treatments. How to protect yourself from this virus!
Take Travel Precautions
COVID-19 is spread from human to human contact. Make sure to wash your hands frequently to help protect against any germs, especially if you are in public places. An additional way to protect yourself and others is to wear a facemask when in public places like a mall, airport, doctor’s office, or simply walking around.
As of now, you should also avoid traveling to places where there has been an outbreak. If you are traveling internationally, it is always a good idea to call your country’s embassy to check on any potential health concerns and learn how you can take preventative measures.
Healthy Habits
If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a million times! Wash your hands!
Make sure to wash your hands with warm soapy water for at least 20 seconds frequently. Alternatively, you can also use hand sanitizer to get rid of germs. Make sure the hand sanitizer is between 60-95% alcohol for maximum effectiveness!
Washing your hands before meals, before and after using the restroom, and several times throughout the day is a great way to avoid the spread of germs and viruses.
Scientists are finding that this strain of coronavirus cannot live on surfaces longer than about an hour or so.
Washing your hands frequently, avoiding sharing drinks, avoiding touching your face, are essential to overall health!
Another way to make sure that you are practicing good hygiene habits is to keep your home clean and pest free. Having a home that pests are attracted to means that you are more at risk to get sick and invite unwanted germs into your home.
All of these simple habits can help save lives.
Maintain a Healthy Immune System
Another way to ensure that you are protected from the effects of COVID-19 is to make sure that your immune system is as strong as possible. There are many ways you can go about making sure that your immune system is ready to defend you against a sickness!
Getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, and eating a diet high in antioxidant-rich foods like fruits and vegetables are great ways to boost your immune system and maintain overall health.
Remember that coronavirus is the name for a family of viruses, and the current coronavirus that people are concerned about is COVID-19, commonly called the Wuhan virus.
COVID-19 spreads very quickly from human contact, but at this time still has a low mortality rate of 1%. Those with healthy immune systems can rest and recover from this virus, but those with health disadvantages like a weakened immune system, those who are older, or those that continue working through sickness are not as likely to fully recover.
Living an overall healthy lifestyle and boosting your immune system will help protect you!
