
How are you managing stress? - ryanmercer
Obviously some of us have more stressful jobs than others normally, what methods have you found that have helped you manage that stress?<p>Now that COVID-19 is a thing, how are you managing that stress?<p>I&#x27;m so incredibly stressed.<p>We share desks with another shift at work and have 4-5 feet between desks in an open office, I net about $465 a week (would be 510ish but repaying 401k loan), my 67 year old mother with immune and a myriad of other health issues lives with me, I&#x27;m supposed to be getting married in 66 days and my fiance is currently in Missouri living at her parents while finishing a teaching year while I am in Indiana and we don&#x27;t even know if the courthouse here will be open when we go to get the marriage license next month now. As of writing this I&#x27;m 7 months, 27 days, 8 hours, 5 minutes sober and alcohol is my traditional stress coping mechanism which I largely replaced with strength sports but the gyms are closed by order of local government...<p>Will I get the virus from work, will I have a job tomorrow working in international freight, will I have one in a month, will my food prep feed my mother and I long enough if we get confined to home as groceries have been void of staples since Friday evening, will I kill my immune compromised mother by bringing the virus home from work.<p>HN, what has helped you deal with stress?
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thisistheend123
Think about the long term. Everyone will die. Even the sun. Don't fret over
it. Take general precautions, but don't live in constant fear because that is
like dying even before your actual death.

Leave some of it to chance. You can't do/control everything. Become a bit
humble. Bow before nature, for what it gave in so much abundance, it can take
away much as quickly.

Think of millions of under privileged who die more from more common ailments
everyday. I don't think they would be least worried about this new virus,
because they fight for life everyday and have done so since they were born.

Thank your luck, for you were born at a better place in better times, and try
to enjoy each moment as it comes and passes.

~~~
finaliteration
> _Thank your luck, for you were born at a better place in better times_

I spend a good amount of time thinking about how fortunate I am and how
grateful and thankful I am to have the job and resources that I do. I find
that it helps with stress to experience and express that.

------
lukev
I don't know if it will help others, but a few viewpoints that have (perhaps
strangely) helped me:

1\. Strictly limiting my social media consumption. Lots of people are stress
posting as their own coping mechanism and if you consume it all day it
inevitably takes an emotional toll.

2\. This is a once-in-a-generation event. It's ok if things get cancelled or
pushed back. It's nobody's fault. Everyone will understand and do the best
they can.

3\. You aren't in control of the national/global situation. Despite all the
armchair epidemiologists on this site, the reality is the vast majority of us
are simply riding it out. Embracing a lack of agency can be freeing (for me,
at least).

4\. Aside from the disease itself, I don't think there's a realistic scenario
where livelihood itself is in danger. Supply chains for staple items are in
fine shape (shortages are a result of short-term panic buying.) Lots of people
are going to get laid off, but unemployment exists and even the GOP seem eager
to provide enough aid to pull people through.

5\. Everything is going to change, and that's ok. It's mostly scary because we
don't know what the new normal will look like. But whatever that is, normality
_will_ return, and though it isn't a universal law, humanity tends to do a
pretty good job of righting itself after adversity. If anything, our periods
of societal decline tend to come from too much stability and rot from within,
rather than external hardship.

------
sturza
Also consider staying away from the covid news wave. Helps keeping you sane.
It’s not helpful to know everything. Just wash your hands, try to stay home
and and keep distance from people.

------
gus_massa
Consider delaying the wedding, but you must talk about this carefully with
your S.O. The wedding party is definitively canceled, but I guess you will
still be able to get married without guests.

Can you buy a running mill or something? Can you rent part of the equipment
from the gym? They are not going to use it anyway and they may need a small
amount of money.

IIRC there have not been food shortages for now. Keep some food in case there
is a small shortage or panic.

~~~
ryanmercer
As far as buying/renting stuff, I live in an apartment and my apartment even
closed their gym and offices because of the virus.

For food shortages, there's definitely food issues here. Here are some
pictures of the shelves Friday night
[https://imgur.com/gallery/gczEiFt](https://imgur.com/gallery/gczEiFt), I've
been going 1-2x a day since and it's just worse each time I go. Groceries all
have restricted hours now too. Opening around 6-8am and closing at 10-11:30pm
where some were previously 24/7.

Monday on the way to work at 7am (+/\- 10 minutes) I drove by 4 stores and all
of the parking lots were packed already. Monday evening I stood in line at the
grocery for 25 minutes at self checkout to buy a hand basket of stuff with
every single staffed register open (which I have NEVER seen).

I have a few months worth of basic staples that I could live on but it's
getting hard just to replace what I'm eating daily due to people panic-buying.
I can't find potatoes (my daily lunch), I can't find oats (my daily
breakfast), there are usually a dozen bunches of bananas or less each time I
go to the store and I only buy 2 to leave some for others and I eat them for
breakfast and an evening snack, frozen kale (breakfast) has been sold out
since Saturday (I bought the last package, a package lasts me 2 days) and even
during normal times fresh kale is frequently out of stock, I usually have
beans and corn for dinner while beans are in short supply, rice is in very
short supply, bread basically doesn't exist, flour basically doesn't exist,
toilet paper has been sold out since Friday, all from people panic buying.

9 more cases were confirmed in Indiana today taking us to 39 which I've
already heard had people flocking to groceries so I'm not even going to bother
stopping tonight.

If people would just calm down the food situation would go away.

>Consider delaying the wedding,

Unfortunately this isn't an option. We can't live together unmarried due to
our religious beliefs and we picked our current date because her teaching yer
ends the week leading up to it. We're still working on getting everything we
need for our temple sealing (if it is even still open by then, it is for now
basically only for weddings) so at best we could only try moving it up once we
have the necessary paperwork signed and then it would be get married and she'd
have to get in the car and head right back to Missouri. We can't push it back
(much) because she'd either have to stay in Missouri until a teaching year
starts here (if she finds a job now that schools are shut down) or we'd have
to find her temporary housing and hemorrhage money on 2 places.

~~~
gus_massa
Can you put a running mill inside your apartment? (I'm not a gym fan, so I
don't understand if it is useful to get enough physicals activity.)

It is impossible to be sure, but I expect than two month of food is more than
enough. In the long term, I expect problems with food than need a lot of
handwork, like strawberries or raisins, but corn is very automated and it will
be fine. (I like corn, I hope you like it too.) (Obviously you can't eat only
corn every day.) From Wikipedia:

> _Indiana is the fifth largest corn-producing state in the U.S., with over a
> billion bushels harvested in 2013._

I live in Argentina, so we are somewhat used to natural and artificial
catastrophes every ten years. For example, a few tears ago the food producers
refuse to send food to the city due to the high taxes. To avoid the empty
spaces, the supermarkets filled the void with toilette paper packages. I could
have bought a hundred of toilette paper packages those days.

I work in the university, so I understand the problems to change the job at a
random time. Good luck with the wedding. Remember to post some photos here!

~~~
ryanmercer
>Good luck with the wedding

Thank you! I think we should be fine as long as the government office is open
next month when we go to get our license.

------
codingdave
I'm less stressed than I have been in most of my life.

My best guess as to why is that the shoe finally dropped. When growing up in
the cold war, we were children afraid of dying in a nuclear war. Then we got
older an experienced AIDs, terrorism, wars, y2K scares, and all kinds of other
events. And while they all brought some trauma and pain, with 9/11 even
shutting things down for a brief time... life in the USA just kept on rolling.
But those of us who grew up in the Cold War never expected that to last. Many
of us turned into adults who live with a constant underlying anxiety that
everything will blow up and society will shut down.

Well, it finally did. And somehow that is calming. Because now instead of
being anxious over what may come, we just need to react to what did come.
Sure, I have problems I'm dealing with now, both at work and home. But they
aren't stressful, they are just things I gotta get up and take care of.

------
thomk
To answer your question up front:

0\. This is a new normal, accept that and make a schedule that illustrates
your acceptance of it. 1\. Google 'bodyweight exercise' 2\. Plenty of sleep
reduces stress. 3\. Cold showers give you an adrenaline hit that is quickly
followed by a very good feeling. 4\. Don't eat junk. 5\. Meditate: Sit in a
quiet room and observe the thoughts that are consistently popping into your
head. AFTER meditation deal with those repeating thoughts.

Just some general life advice from an old man: Postpone that wedding right
now. It doesn't mean you love each other less. Imagine the relief and joy will
have getting married without the looming invisible fear of a global pandemic.

You'll get through this. We all will, stay positive.

Above all else: do whatever it takes to keep sober, you're doing great, KEEP
THAT SHIT UP.

~~~
ryanmercer
>Above all else: do whatever it takes to keep sober, you're doing great, KEEP
THAT SHIT UP.

Thanks. I'm mostly at a point where I can swat away any urge to drink just by
getting up and moving around for a few minutes or fiddling with something like
a deck of cards (I've found just shuffling/bridging a deck is really 'zen') or
a puzzle to occupy my mind, but from like 15ish to 33/34 last year it was my
primary comping mechanism as it was my father's and his father's so I'm
largely in uncharted waters here with what healthy coping mechanisms are.

------
airstrike
I'm not in the army, but from my understanding (and way too many Men's Health
magazine covers), those folks know how to exercise pretty intensely with
nothing but their own body weight.

Sounds like a nice way to find a new hobby and maintain some of your sanity as
a coping mechanism.

From a quick google search:
[https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a31698453/athlean-x-
home-...](https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a31698453/athlean-x-home-workout-
total-bodyweight-video/)

------
contingencies
Stop smoking. Walk in nature. Cut out caffeine. Ensure a dark, cool,
uninterrupted sleep environment. Keep a log before leaving work that lists
your major achievements for the day in bullet form so you have the habit of
recognizing your work. Don't worry about things you can't control, because
it's a waste of your time and energy. If you have to delay the formal marriage
registration due to the government's overreaction, so be it. It's irrelevant
in the scale of life.

------
hattori
1) Having a clear list of problems which are within my control. 2) Redirect
'nervous energy' into solving just those problems. 3) Sleep, nutrition. Helped
me.

~~~
maximente
excellently put. i'd add (especially for OP) bodyweight training at home -
start with pull up bar over door and push up handles (wrist welfare). core can
be done without weights or equipment. burpees are good.

------
sethammons
No reason to stress out about things outside your sphere of influence. Look
for things you can manage, and work to manage them.

Talk to your manager / hr. Ask about accomodations for your situation (remote
work? Different desks? More santizer?). Strive to keep your living quarters
sanitized. Don't touch your face. Separate you from your mom as much as
possible in your living quarters. If you develop a cough, keep your face
covered. As for the wedding, a big event is out of the question for the time
being. If it is just a courthouse thing, which I recommend anyway, maybe it
will be open, maybe it won't. Go with the flow. Any half-decent relationship
can survive that. Build a small surplus of emergency food. Work out with body
exercises.

Take things one step at a time. Don't worry about things you can't affect. For
those things you can affect, do so, and don't worry.

Take solace that nearly the entire history of mankind has had it worse than
you do now.

------
bionhoward
My sales buddy played me this audiobook during a cross country road trip, it’s
about the voice in your head, mostly the type of simple advice no one gives
but it’s useful to hear spelled out explicitly, worth a listen

The Power of Now by Ekhart Tolle [https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Power-of-Now-
Audiobook/B002V0...](https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Power-of-Now-
Audiobook/B002V0PN36)

(The last part of the book gets a bit woo-woo but the earlier bits are useful
for sure)

Another audiobook for stress is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

[https://www.audible.com/pd/Meditations-
Audiobook/B004IBRMZS](https://www.audible.com/pd/Meditations-
Audiobook/B004IBRMZS)

You’re afraid because you predict things will worsen, and that’s normal...just
remember we only control our own decisions, and that’s all we need to focus on
right now

------
inertiatic
Unironically the one thought that completely allows me to relax is that I will
die at some point and it all doesn't matter.

For me, this doesn't bring me down but it removes all the stakes.

Einmal ist keinmal, basically.

------
Alexandra
I do morning pages (three pages of longhand writing). I usually feel a lot
better by the end of the third page. It's a technique I learned from Julia
Cameron's book "The artist's way". The words must be stream of thought
(whatever comes to mind), they must be written on paper, longhand, without
interruption and without judging yourself. And noone is allowed to read them,
not even you.

~~~
ryanmercer
Interesting, I might give that a go tomorrow!

------
itake
I’ve been super nervous about what Will happen and what I should do.

I wrote out a list with all of my “what if scenarios” and chose what I would
do in that situation (ex. Lose my job? I’ll move in with my gf and get her
home cooking everyday!). After writing out all of the futures, it took a load
off of me and let me focus more on the present.

------
anon012012
I'm going to raise eyebrows, but I don't believe in ego. I will always be
fighting, because we are everyone and everything.

We are one universal consciousness, illusioned into multiple _perspectives_.

There is the same void between neurons than between each other... It is
ontologically connected!

We have a responsibility to preserve the truth and its hypotheses, and to
protect our fellows. Stress is a luxury.

Use this time to have people reflect. We need universal income, meat ban,
befriending the Chinese, remote work, virtual classrooms at least for bullies
and bullied, low-speed lightweight low-cost electric vehicles (maybe with a
ban on SUV), more renewable energy, scientific cooperative conglomerate,
destroy the anti-intellectualism, protect the low-intellect from a life of
shaming, then stop over-production... There is a lot to do while people are
bored home. I hope people here can suggest more things to do! It is time for
change. Be brave

------
DarknessFalls
I make sure I walk at least 30 minutes a day, five days a week and get
sunlight. Anything that is five miles away or less, I try and get to by
bicycle. The more physical activity you have, the more your cognitive stresses
will ease.

------
nuc1e0n
A small shot of Bailey's Irish Cream when I wake up to knock the edge off the
day. Nytol to help me get the best possible night's sleep at night. I also try
to limit the amount I read the news.

------
duxup
Kids at home and my wife and I are BOTH trying to work at home.

Lots of activities and discussions about independent playtime with the kids.

I wear shooting earmuffs to avoid the distractions / noise.

Planning to take the kids for some walks and etc.

------
lsllc
Running! Weekly mileage has doubled in the last two weeks! -- although mostly
due to pretty much every other activity shutting down (ski areas, gyms etc) vs
stress.

------
BooneJS
Mind map everything you worry about. Go deeper in scenarios like losing a job.
Get it all out there and take a breath, because you can get through every
scenario.

------
DoreenMichele
I'm not that stressed. So I imagine my remarks will likely be unforgivable and
unwelcome, no matter how hard I try to be PC and try to signal that "I'm
trying to be helpful and supportive."

My dad grew up in the Great Depression and fought in two wars. My mom grew up
in Germany during WW2 and its aftermath.

I was molested and raped as a child. I and my oldest son have a deadly genetic
disorder.

I and my sons have spent nearly twenty years arranging our lives so we can
work from home, avoid people, control germs, etc. The pandemic is mostly
business as usual for us, plus some so far relatively minor inconveniences
because of stores changing their hours and some things being sold out.

I spend part of my time wondering if there's some way to share useful
information with the world or if people would literally rather die than show
me one iota of respect, having treated me like a loon for years. Other than
that, it's mostly business as usual for me.

That includes:

Playing games to keep myself occupied when I can't do other things.

Hanging out on online forums as my primary form of socializing because it's
germ free.

Cooking at home or picking up takeout, as usual.

Taking the trash out immediately after meals so germs can't fester in my home.

I have no upholstered furniture and no carpeting because those things are
gross health hazards for me.

I occasionally manage to work a little. After eating and gaming and
caretaking, I can sometimes focus enough to write for pay, blog or further pro
bono projects I'm involved with. I've done remote work for years. Business
seems to be ticking up slightly for me at the moment.

During stressful times, I have a policy of "bread and circus." That means keep
people fed and keep them entertained and harmlessly occupied.

I try to not do anything stupid that makes things worse because we're stressed
out. I try to cut people slack for being cranky jerks. Don't escalate
conflicts. Instead, de-escalate them.

Don't avoid addressing real problems that actually need to be addressed
though. If x is making things worse, now is a good time to insist as politely
and firmly as possible that "X has to stop/change because there's a pandemic
on and we just cannot allow such behavior. It's literally life-threatening
now. Please and thank you, but absolutely no."

Stay informed. Focus on practical, helpful information. Don't get caught up in
panic and hysteria. The world has been on the brink before and gotten through
it. Honest.

(Watch _Men in Black_ again sometime. I absolutely love the line about how the
world is constantly on the brink of being destroyed and it's imperative that
the world just not know it so they can be happy.)

Somewhere in there, that morphed from first person "here's what I do" to a
more third person "here's what you should do." framing. I don't know how to
fix it and I don't really care that much, tbh. I'm extremely tired of "no
amount of trying to be polite on my end protects me from open hatred and
contempt."

Sorry you are so stressed. I hope you find practical answers for your
problems. That's the best way to reduce stress: by problem solving.

~~~
ryanmercer
>I have a policy of "bread and circus." That means keep people fed and keep
them entertained and harmlessly occupied.

Maybe instead of my normal reading and television tonight I'll throw myself
into a favorite NES title from my childhood, something I don't have to think
about and can just enjoy like Supe Mario 1/3 or Tetris/Dr. Mario. Thanks!

~~~
DoreenMichele
Mindless, familiar games that remind you of a positive time in your life are
almost always a good choice when stress is high.

------
eyeball
I’m not. This shit is putting me over the edge. Fear I’m going to breakdown.

~~~
ryanmercer
You aren't alone.

------
kleer001
Stoicism.

