9 ways to stay calm and make use of weird times

Photo by Fikri Rasyid on Unsplash

Enough with the toilet paper, everybody. Here are nine other ways to prepare for — and even make use of — a pandemic.

1. Reach out to folks by phone, Zoom, Skype, or whatever. It can be very easy to isolate right now and we really need human connection. Schedule some chats with people you don’t talk to often enough (you’ll likely have some time now that events are being canceled). Check in on elders by phone, and FaceTime a little extra with your besties. This goes double for all the introverts out there, who like me can sink a little too deeply into privacy.
2. Recognize that we’re all in this together. All of us are feeling it. It isn’t personal, even if it feels like it’s ruining your life in the short term. Likewise, the crisis isn’t happening abstractly to some strangers over there — there are no strangers and over there is not that far away. The virus is teaching us not to discriminate. It’s showing us that there are invisible connections between us all, in ways that we otherwise tend not to consider.
3. Remember that we all have triggers and it’s likely that everyone you meet is struggling a little. This time of uncertainty might bring up very practical concerns (changes in income, worry for loved ones, medical bills, child care) as well as deeply rooted associations with past trauma. Feelings about serious…