How to calm yourself and others in the face of the threat of the Coronavirus

Whether you are a father, mother, co-worker or roommate, in the classroom or not, we all transmit our emotional states through non-verbal language, expressiveness, mood or through language.

Collective panic or constant concern and alarm both for health and for the impact on the family, local or national economy; It is generating a collective anguish that especially floods children who cannot even fully understand the danger.

Of course, perhaps the youngest are the least vulnerable with respect to the impact of the coronavirus on health, but they are the most in need of a safe environment to be able to remain calm.

• Related article: "The 7 types of anxiety (characteristics, causes and symptoms)"

How to take care of yourself psychologically and take care of others in the face of the coronavirus

The care system is activated and developed through the behaviors that precisely the prevention measures limit, such as contact, closeness, touching, caressing, kissing...

We are overexposed to a huge amount of information, before which we

we become subject matter experts or become overwhelmed with data indigestion or fall into obsessive control rituals. So making responsible use of both medical and psychological guides of the measures that are coming into our hands is essential.

We can start by observing our body's response, how thoughts are triggered, and trying to connect with our breath.

Small exercise to calm down in the face of a collective threat

Look around you, if you have children in your care or elderly people, your fears reach them through psychological contagion without saying a word. Don't keep reading, just breathe, imagine how when you breathe out your fears and alarms are reduced, they vanish like smoke from a match.

Now smile, smile within yourself, smile at that emotional capacity to calm down and relax, smile too and warmly accept the fear experienced. Then go to your children or to the elderly people who are in your care, smile at them too, also accept the fear they have experienced without being yet conscious, speak to them delicately, smile at them with your eyes, address them with delicate and careful words, do not be afraid to put words to their fears and yours.

As we express, we tame our innermost fears, and in this way we favor our calm and that of others.

Realizing the alarm that goes off every time we look for signs of calm and can't find it helps us appreciate what's important, which is that we ourselves do not become alarm detonators, of danger to help keep everyone's spirits calm.

Other tips to stay in control

Shared acts such as group meetings on balconies and windows allow us to keep the contact in isolation, share the joy of togetherness and generate a shared state of joy.

If we have to salvage something from this experience it is how we are updating and prioritizing our social mind-body, which extends beyond ourselves and links us in the distance.

Shared resources, shared humor, shared states, even if it's a distance of one meter, we share our states.

As a psychologist, my personal and professional challenge right now is to help us realize how emotions, thoughts, and responses transcend beyond oneself. Vitaliza, as a health center is still sensitive to the need for close human support. Those who are lonely or overwhelmed or who want to continue the support they have received so far have the opportunity to find in vitalize its doors open online.

Author: Cristina Cortes, Psychologist, psychotherapist and Director of VITALIZA.