The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many usual activities to be disrupted – apart from most adults having to work from home, the majority of students are also left with no choice but to do home-based learning (HBL). This leaves them cooped up at home with less face-to-face social interaction with their peers and teachers, and most importantly, this may have heightened their stress levels with regards to their academic performances. Considering that some students will most likely have to bear with HBL for quite some time, they will need to ensure that they are keeping themselves mentally healthy. In any case, having to deal with burnout is certainly undesirable, and learning how to handle their stress is crucial.
Youths dealing with HBL often have many things to stress over – from struggling with technical issues to the lack of discipline over one’s assignments and time management. They may tend to procrastinate more, which is unsurprising considering that they may be studying from the comforts of their bed. For the more studious ones, HBL may pose a challenge since it may be difficult for them to receive immediate feedback and guidance from their teachers. With such factors contributing to their stress levels, these youths may be burnt out even before HBL ends. If you are one of these troubled students struggling with HBL and study stress, here are some tips to help you get through the difficult times and to help you cope better.
Firstly, consider if you are allocating time for exercise in your weekly routine. Are you getting the exercise you need after your online classes? It is a well-known fact that exercising and staying fit can do wonders for your mental acuity, and can help lift your spirits through the release of endorphins, which act as “feel-good hormones”. Setting aside time to keep active will certainly benefit you in more ways than one – both physically and mentally. In addition to exercise, it is an added bonus if you pay more attention to your diet. Eating more brain foods will help you concentrate and absorb information better, hence translating into greater productivity as well as improved quality of work.
Now that there isn’t a need to attend school physically (at least for some students), there is a high chance that you no longer pack and organise your study materials. Moreover, your study space is most likely cluttered with notes, stationery and various other personal belongings. Take this chance to tidy up your workspace whenever you can – be it once you are done for the day or before you start. Excessive clutter can cause unnecessary stress as well as the loss of productivity, especially if you have to spend additional time looking for your relevant study materials or other lost items. Needless to say, over time, this will have a negative impact on your grades. In order to eliminate such potential causes of stress, try to make a conscious effort to tidy your study area often. Having a minimalistic workspace with only the essential items will definitely reduce distractions and allow you to concentrate better. For those who share a space with other family members, cutting down on excessive clutter will also help to keep familial relationships positive, for they will no longer have to bear with an unorganised environment, possibly resulting in less frustration and conflict. Having said this, start tidying up and you will come to realise that it is worth the effort.
Are you someone who lacks self-discipline? Most students find themselves facing this problem, especially with many more sources of distraction while at home. Some may tend to procrastinate and end up not having sufficient time to complete their tasks. Their poor time management thus leads to heightened stress levels, particularly when deadlines are nearing. The best tip we can offer is to start off with a list of all the tasks you need to complete. Create your own calendar or a to-do list, and work backwards from all your deadlines. Allocate enough buffer time to ensure that you can complete your assignments before the due date. With this, you can prioritise your assignments with more ease, as well as to ensure that you do not leave out any important tasks. You may think that you can remember all of them, but as stress levels increase with poor time management, something is sure to slip your mind.
In Singapore, the education system is very competitive, as most people would know. Many students rely heavily on tuition to give them a head start, or to help them catch up with any content that they were unable to grasp. However, with the pandemic, tuition centres are shut down to minimise the spread of the virus, leaving the students on their own to cope with their studies. As such, these students could be increasingly stressed out, for fear of falling behind on their school work. If you can relate to these individuals, try forming an online support group with your fellow classmates. Conduct group study sessions and help each other out regarding areas for improvement. Brainstorming ideas while teaching others can help you to revise your concepts as well as to gain more insight into particular topics. In a sense, it is killing two birds with one stone.
Stress. What is stress? This word is used so casually nowadays that it has lost its impact as something that can be detrimental to health, especially during this unsettling period of the Covid-19 pandemic. We might have adapted to the restrictions put in place, like wearing a mask and practicing social distancing wherever we are, but have we truly come to terms with these regulations, or are we trying to distract ourselves from the pressing concerns of our future? Adhering to the past few months of circuit breaker regulations definitely have not been easy on everyone, be it young or old. The stress and inconveniences experienced due to a sudden change in routine habits have been unnerving for many and as we progress on to the next few phases, what does this mean for us?
By now, Singaporeans would have been working from home or have been home-based learning (HBL), adapting to these changes of environments whilst managing their hectic schedules. However, as the world economies bulldoze to get things back up and running, we cannot ignore that there might be no place for permanency again i.e. making our homes temporary workspaces then returning back to original practices or shuttling between the two.
Undoubtedly, there are pros and cons to each family being at home together, where relationships are constantly tested and stretched. Some might argue that it’s been a good time for family bonding: to better understand one another as the rat race may have left some in a time capsule ignorant of changes; while others unable to compartmentalise their thoughts, feel that it’s a disruption to their workspace and schedules, having to juggle work and personal life in the same physical space.
Moving forward, our government aims to have routines restored back to normal, this means returning back to the high demands of work and student lives, but what is normal? We wonder if it will be difficult to get back into the grind after the somewhat sedentary lifestyles some of us have been living in the past few months, giving up on flexible self-dictated work hours and or dragging our muscles to leave home and travel to work. Also, companies and schools will have to work around challenging social distancing measures, which can pose a problem considering our highly interactive nature. Whilst schools are drawing out plans for rotational return of students, trying to stagger and minimise cross contact within large groups, companies on the other hand, have to reorganise their “back-to-back” cubicle style like workspace that was easier for communication, into something less compact. These new arrangements will potentially be disruptive to students’ learning, having to conduct lessons both online and face-to-face (f2f), along with teachers who will have to adjust their teaching methods accordingly and capture the essence of each lesson, whilst engaging students. Offices will have to convert into something less compact or cut down on the number of employees on site, which may not only slow down productivity but also potentially decrease employee satisfaction and well-being. Nevertheless, this creates a lot of physical, emotional and mental stress.
At the initial stages, non-chronic stress may be beneficial to give people an adrenaline boost to encourage them to press on. However, if we are not capable of managing stress, it may become chronic. This can cause our brains, nervous systems and behaviour to affect the expression of genes in sperms or alter brain development of our offspring.
A more immediate manifestation shows that the brain activates neuropeptide-secretion systems in response to stress, leading to a cascading effect involving adrenal corticosteroid hormones. This can result in stress-related brain diseases, like depression and anxiety disorders as well as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Moreover, chronic stress can stunt memory growth and even kill brain cells, which result in learning impairments. Not forgetting, the physical aspects of stress such as headaches, muscle fatigue, changes in appetite or insomnia, all of which can be overlooked as just temporary “disturbances”, rather than a contributing factor of stress that is beginning to pose a hindrance on daily activities. This might be threatening if it’s not diagnosed and dealt with in its early stages. Prolonged periods of stress can also cause some to turn to less favourable options like alcohol, smoking or even drugs, which should be avoided at all costs.
Here are some suggested precautionary measures we could take to prevent the rise of chronic stress:
One of the possible solutions to relieve stress is exercise, although some might be deprived of going to their usual gym studios, we can opt for a nature setting outdoors to get some vitamin D too! Instead of being cooped up at home, fresh air is always welcomed.
Another way to destress is picking up new hobbies like baking or cooking. Unknowingly, you can invest loads of time into learning new recipes to convert into practical use that may come in handy in the future!
Next, meditation. Even though it might take a while to enter a full meditative state, this is definitely worth the try to keep calm and relaxed amidst this chaos, to be at peace with yourself. It also clears your head to think about self-goals and plans ahead.
Last but not least, laugh! As the saying goes, laughter is the best medicine. This is easily attainable to get your tummy hurting watching humorous videos or sharing silly jokes and the best time to share happy moments with your family!
Food For Thought: If Covid-19 is here to stay, how do we embrace it without crippling our way of life?
Relationship Advice from Relationship Therapist & Coach, Winifred Ling
Chelsea, a stunning flight attendant and her partner, Clayton, have been experiencing the Covid lockdown blues. Being in the early stages of their relationship, they both confessed to feeling the effects of being apart from each other – while they were somewhat used to incompatible schedules, the loss of physical intimacy that was at least within reach before amplified the tattoo of each pining heart.
They shared how they were managing to stay sane and close throughout the lockdown – by making use of technological advances, utilising Zoom to keep each other apprised of the happenings in their lives.
Winifred Ling, a Gottman Certified Relationship Therapist, featured in the Mothership vlog – gave this couple some tips on how to be “out of ‘touch’ but not out of love” and how to keep their relationships healthy. Love takes effort, and she relayed to her audience some suggestions that were remarkably common-sensical, like making sure to check in with your significant other with words of encouragement.
“I forgive you.” while on the surface seems to be an innocuous word and easy to say. But in reality, it’s one of the most difficult words to express in our human language. A few years ago, a middle-aged man angrily dragged his 13-year-old son to our clinic, it turned out that Mr Zhang (pseudonym) had discovered his son hiding in a corner of his room smoking, and slapped the boy hard in a fit of anger. Even after being scolded the boy was recalcitrant and didn’t even feel remorseful. In her efforts to appease the situation at home, his wife suggested bringing the son to see a counsellor.
On that day, I happened to walk past the therapy room. I could only hear the loud arguments between the father & son, and loud sobbings of the mom. Just as I stepped into my office, my office phone rang. It was an urgent call from my colleague, the therapist, who alerted that the situation was getting a bit out of hand, and asked for my assistance in the therapy room. Upon arriving at the scene, I could hear the son’s angry retort, “You’ve never loved me since young, why are you trying to control me now? All you’ve ever done was scolding me. So what if I behave myself? Would you even notice?”
It took more than an hour to calm all parties down. After which, I carefully interviewed both Mr Zhang and his son, and I finally got to the root of why the situation had become so tense between father and son.
It wasn’t the 13-year-old boy who had caused the breakdown in their relationship. The issues stem from painful experiences when Mr Zhang was growing up. Mr Zhang had grown up with an abusive father who was not only alcoholic and chain-smoked, who often vented his anger on his wife and children. As a result, Mr Zhang made a vow from young to never touch alcohol and cigarettes. Unfortunately, his demeanour also became very stern with hardly any smile on his face and had high expectations with his own children. Why did it become like this? It was because he had never forgiven his own father. The deeply buried hurts had made him prone to irritability, and thus he didn’t know how to praise or encourage his own child, and only knew strict discipline as his way of bringing up his child. Moreover, his biggest worry had been over his child coming into contact with alcohol and tobacco.
Mrs Zhang explained, her husband was a good man, but was a man of few words, and was not good in expressing his feelings. She knew that he really cares about the child, but it was a pity that communication was poor between the father and son. As a result of a craving for his father’s love and experiencing scolding and punishment from young, the boy had grown to become more rebellious in recent years.
In fact, Mr Zhang’s father had quit smoking and drinking for many years. However, as a result of the poor relationship between Mr Zhang and his father coupled with a break in communications for more than a decade. Mr Zhang couldn’t come to terms with my conclusion initially. But for the sake of his own son, he finally agreed to receive counselling. After several months, he finally understood the root cause. He asked me, “I’ve finally understood that the root cause of my frustrations was the unresolved anger and hatred towards my own father, but what should I do after so many years?”
Fortunately, one day his mother decided to visit their grandson together with his father. Although he felt embarrassed initially, Mr Zhang struck up his courage, squarely faced his dad and said: “I forgive you.” This simple yet miraculous sentence seemed to untie the knots of anger and hurts between Mr Zhang and his father. From that day onwards, Mr Zhang began to smile more frequently face and he could finally express his love fully to his son.As a result, his son stopped being rebellious. Not only did he stop smoking, but also paid more attention to his studies.
As a psychiatrist, I’m truly happy for this family and admire Mr Zhang’s courage in forgiving his own father. They continued with counselling for some time, and finally mended their father and son relationship that was formerly broken.
Therefore, forgiving others is also giving ourselves a chance to receive complete healing.
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