Gail Alexan­der

How do you han­dle COVID-19 stress?

Main­tain­ing con­nec­tions and pos­i­tiv­i­ty are among keys to cop­ing and for Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, he’s found com­fort in read­ing the Bible and lis­ten­ing to the mu­sic of late sitar vir­tu­oso Ravi Shankar.

Deyals­ingh yes­ter­day shared how he’s keep­ing it to­geth­er amid COVID stress when he re­spond­ed to a query dur­ing the dai­ly me­dia up­date.

“I’m heart­ened to know there’s some con­cern about the Health Min­is­ter’s health and every­one’s—I’m re­al­ly touched,” Deyals­ingh said.

“That will give all Health Min­istry staff and health work­ers added im­pe­tus to work on every­one’s be­half.”

He said his staff meets at 7.45 am dai­ly.

“It’s a tea meet­ing, we all wear masks. We con­duct meet­ings, not in a mor­bid fash­ion but in se­ri­ous man­ner that gives all an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­lax and re­port,” he said.

“I al­so found some so­lace back in the Bible from which I’d strayed away. Now that I have some time I read it more, on­line.

“I al­so go back to my mu­sic days: I tune in­to sitarist Ravi Shankar and his daugh­ter Anush­ka to hear their mu­sic. I’m try­ing to cope well to be with you here every mile of the way.”

Deyals­ingh added he’s al­so try­ing to “so­cial dis­tance from my fridge.”

He al­so ad­dressed queries about the fact peo­ple are grow­ing rest­less amid COVID re­stric­tions and might be tempt­ed to risk in­fec­tion over con­tin­u­ing to heed warn­ings.

Men­tal health spe­cial­ist Dr Hazel Oth­el­lo al­so shared cop­ing mech­a­nisms for work­ers, the un­em­ployed, those griev­ing and oth­er peo­ple.

“These are dif­fi­cult times. It may be with us in T&T for a while so we must man­age day by day know­ing we have to do it for some time,” Oth­el­lo said.

She said her de-stress­ing tech­niques in­clude “…Find­ing my peace in any storm in my re­la­tion­ship with God. I read the Bible and par­tic­i­pate in wor­ship, my church meet­ings take place via Zoom.”

She said she al­so loves mu­sic and ex­er­cis­ing.

“I do what I can to main­tain peace of mind and not to be­come over­whelmed or over­ly tired..some­times one has to turn off the phone and get R&R (rest and recre­ation) to be fit for the next leg,”

Oth­el­lo al­so de­tailed how do­mes­tic vi­o­lence vic­tims might cope. She said an in­crease in do­mes­tic vi­o­lence was recog­nised cur­rent­ly as a re­sult of peo­ple be­ing in close quar­ters for pro­longed pe­ri­ods. She ad­vised po­ten­tial vic­tims to fol­low pat­terns that re­lax them and make plans for times for when they’re un­safe.

“Have phone num­bers, po­lice or helplines avail­able. Con­tact au­thor­i­ties who can help. Or­gan­ise in a way in case you need to leave sud­den­ly, have a bag packed and doc­u­ments ac­ces­si­ble,” she said.

Urg­ing rou­tines to keep oc­cu­pied, she said ly­ing in bed for pro­longed pe­ri­ods may be a sign of dis­or­der and is al­so a sign of de­pres­sion. Ap­petite changes may al­so sig­nal mood dis­or­der and ex­ces­sive eat­ing may be a sign of de­pres­sion.

“Reach out to health care providers if you’re de­vel­op­ing mood dis­or­der symp­toms,” Oth­el­lo said.

How­ev­er, she said she wasn’t aware of any re­search be­ing done yet on whether more peo­ple are seek­ing men­tal health help due to the COVID prob­lem. She sus­pect­ed it will come lat­er as the cur­rent pe­ri­od con­tin­ues.