How are you managing stress?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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-...

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.

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...

(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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Stoicism.