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As the pandemic continues to surge unabated, people are under a great deal of stress. What we think of as normal has changed. Lives have been turned upside down. We are told to stay home as much as possible to avoid contact with people.
All of this upheaval has put a great mental strain on people. It’s no surprise that there are a growing number of mental health issues. How can we better handle this situation, to not only get through it, but to make progress in our lives at the same time? Here are some ideas from business leaders and neuroscientists.

1. Pare down your goals.

When our minds are trying to deal with too many issues at once, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. It prevents us from thinking things through and making any coherent plans for how to tackle the issues. We need to simplify, to pare things down so that we can focus on just one thing. This reduces the stress on the prefrontal cortex in your brain, the part responsible for planning and doing.

The idea is to focus on just one particular thing that you know you can carry through to completion. Break big problems down into smaller more manageable parts and take care of them item by item. This may mean something like focusing just on what you can accomplish in the next several minutes, rather than thinking about what you are going to do for the entire day.

2. When you feel helpless, do something.

Feeling helpless is the result of feeling a loss of control. To regain it, you need to do something. This releases dopamine in your brain, which in turn increases energy levels and improves our mood, giving us the impetus to do something else, and so on.
It is easy to feel helpless these days reading the headlines, or losing a job, or being confined to your home or apartment. The way out is to do something, no matter how trivial, like making cup of coffee, texting a friend or doing some laundry. Then look for the next thing you can do. This turns your thinking from that of helplessness to purpose.

3. When feeling lonely, reach out to help others

A feeling of isolation is strongest when we are focusing just on ourselves, when we become more introspective. Reaching out to others forces our attention away from our problems to the world around us. It also releases chemicals in our brain that improve our mood and help us feel better.

At Winston Resources, we care about our job candidates, our results and our relationships. We take the time to get to know each one of our candidates, enabling us to make better matches with employers. We treat our people with respect, and establish long-term relationships. Give us a call today to see what Winston can do for you


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