The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Made Stress Go Viral, Too: Here's What You Need To Know About Stress Inoculation Training

Humans have always been exposed to stress — and some of the biggest stressors people in developed nations encounter are work, financial worries, relationships, and even media overload. Poor nutrition, sleeping trouble, and fears about health have been major causes of stress for a long time, as well.

While only a relatively short time has passed since any of us first heard of COVID-19, the virus that sparked a global pandemic has quickly and drastically altered the landscape of life across the planet. Almost nobody is untouched. For most people all across the world, life is markedly different than it was just a year ago, or for that matter, even just a few months back. 

If you thought your stress levels were through the roof in 2019, chances are you're now laughing at your past self.

If there's any situation in which we can almost guarantee that nobody is immune from stress, it's this one. 

The question is — what are you going to do to about your stress levels?

You could participate in something like "the 30-day challenge", introduced by this year's Stress Awareness Month — in which everyone is urged to take at least one step to care for their own physical, mental (cognitive), and emotional health every day. Simple daily steps to boost your wellbeing could include making sure you follow along with an exercise video, starting on that book you always said you'd read, and remembering to connect with your loved ones frequently (online, of course, in these surreal coronavirus-dominated times). 

The really good things about Stress Inoculation Training are that research has found this coping method to be suitable for everyone — as long as it's adapted to their specific situation — and that Stress Inoculation Training very much doesn't take the approach that every problem, every source of stress, has a solution. 

So in the era of COVID-19, Stress Inoculation Training is one of many tools that could help boost your mental and emotional resilience — that is, your ability to bounce back from truly stressful and anxiety-inducing circumstances. How can you make SIT part of your life, without ever walking into a therapist's office (since that's not really a safe option right now, anyway)?

Step 1: Learning about stress in general, and the stress you're exposed to right now in particular

Stressors — things that cause you stress — can be one-offs, single events that cause a whole barrage of consequences, circumstances that come and go from time to time, or situations that go on for a long time.

During the pandemic, we're all likely to be dealing with all of these kinds of stress:

• Even something as (previously) simple as going to the supermarket can be a one-off stressor. 
• A single event, like you or someone you care for getting sick or losing a job, can trigger a series of new stressors. 
• You may experience some of your time spent at home as positive — more quality family time, no stressing around a commute, the ability to organize your time the way you want, etc. A portion of the time, however, you may be desperately worried about what the future will bring, going crazy with cabin fever, or completely unsure how to make things fun for children who aren't used to being cooped up all the time. #StayAtHome is incredibly likely to be a source of intermittent stress. 
• The ongoing pandemic is an equally ongoing source of stress and worry for most of us. 

Take a moment to consider, and maybe even write down, what stresses you most right now. Some of your stressors will have solutions — you can reframe feelings of being stuck at home as being safe at home, minimizing your risk of infection, and you can reduce feelings of cabin fever by doing indoor exercises.

Visualize how you've dealt with stress in the past and how you're coping with stress now. Common "coping mechanisms" that ultimately do more harm than good include:

• Avoidance. Sticking your head in the proverbial sand and trying to pretend that you're not stressed or that life isn't frightenung right now. 
• Substance abuse. 'Nuff said. 
• Externalizing stress through aggression and anger. 
• Feeling completely panicked and powerless. Even if there is nothing you can do to make the stressor go away, there are ways to cope better. 
• Ruminating — mulling scary thoughts over in your head continuously, gradually making yourself more and more stressed.

Step 2: Familiarizing yourself with better coping skills

We can develop better ways to cope even with stressors we can't do anything about — like the fact that we're dealing with an ongoing pandemic.

Of the proven ways to build up resilience against stress, connecting with a supportive social network is one of the most important. When we hear that, we're bound to think of in-person interactions, but that's changed for a lot of us, now. Keep in touch on the internet. If you don't have many loved ones to talk to, even friendly banter with strangers online can offer you a human connection.

Accepting that unpleasant and painful emotions like fear, sadness, grief, guilt, and anger are normal reactions to abnormal circumstances is another important resilience booster. Having negative emotions isn't a problem, but a sign of emotional health. It's what you do with them that matters, and suppressing your difficult feelings shouldn't be an option. On the other hand, wallowing in them is another bad idea.

Experiencing positive emotions boosts your ability to cope with negative ones, on a chemical level. If you can find joy, laughter, and solidarity in these times, it's not wrong — it will help us all get through the hard parts. 

Looking for healthy ways to cope with stress that you can implement right away? One size doesn't fit all, but you can try:

• Helping someone more vulnerable in your community. Making a difference in someone else's life helps you feel part of something bigger than yourself and your immediate surroundings. Being there for others creates a shared bond of solidarity and boosts your faith in humanity. Helping even one other person ultimately helps two, if you include yourself. Go shopping for an elderly neighbor, check in with your relatives, buy an online game for a bored child, donate excess towels to women's or homeless shelters. There are many ways to help. Which will you choose?
• Care for your physical body. Create a routine to battle a lost sense of time and space. Eat well. Exercise every day. Try mindfulness meditation. Try breathing exercises, journaling, nature study (you'd be surprised about the kinds of interesting things you can find even just by looking out the window — my family is observing a nesting crow right now). 
• Find healthy distractions. Take up gardening or sewing. Try that coding course. Play board games with your family. 
• Stay informed, but after a certain point, turn off the news and do something completely different. 
• If the world outside is stressful right now, perhaps because people around you aren't following social distancing rules, practice assertive but deescalating behavior. Imagine yourself saying, "Step back, there's a pandemic going on!", or "No, I can't come to your house now". 
• Look to someone whose coping skills you admire, whether someone you know or someone you don't (even a fictional character), and consider what you could adopt yourself. 

Exposing yourself to minor stressors to build up tolerance against bigger stressors is one of the principles of Stress Inoculation Training, right alongside building an arsenal of healthy coping tools. That obviously doesn't mean intentionally putting yourself in harm's way. You can, however, read news stories from people who were infected. You can practice role-playing scenarios with angry shoppers with your partner or children, or in your mind. You can think, briefly, about what your options are if you were to lose your job, or if your country went on total lockdown (if it isn't already).

Step 3: Putting your skills into practice

Knowing how to cope with stress in a healthy way isn't the same as doing it. That's your next step. Every day, do things to look after your body, mind, and soul. Pat yourself on the back when you're coping well and you feel your stress levels come down. Find joy in the small things that make your life worthwhile, even when you are dealing with big existential problems. Acknowledge when you're close to the edge, and reach out for help. 

When you're stressed and not managing it well, your cortisol levels go through the roof — in turn also weakening your immune system. Tackling stress head on doesn't just boost your emotional health, it also boosts your physical wellbeing. Right now, we're being bombarded with an awful lot of stressors we're powerless to remove from our lives, as well as many that we can indeed change. Reframing and accepting what we can't change, and making positive differences where we can, can help us get through this.