> Good morning and
happy Friday everyone.
Welcome to this edition
of Balancing Life:
Managing Stress in
Uncertain Times.
We're going to have
a great conversation
today and get some tips
on what we can do
at this point and at
this space in our lives.
Before we get started,
let me just welcome
you officially,
I'm Crystal Tyler
Mackey on behalf of
the Virginia
Cooperative Extension
human development
program team,
along with our partners,
North Carolina
Cooperative Extension.
Coming back, by demand,
we are as always
happy to welcome
Alan Rasmussen to have
these conversations
with us.
As we go through
the presentation,
if you have questions
or thoughts,
please feel free to
post those in the chat.
You have two
options in chat,
your default option will
post in a way that Bethany,
Alan and I are
the panelists,
will be the only people
who see what you post.
If you want to
post something
that everyone can see,
please choose in
the drop-down menu
in the Chatbox,
our panelist and all
attendees and then
everyone can see your
thoughts and comments.
Having said that, I'm
going to move
out of the way
and allow Alan to
take us through
this conversation.
So welcome, Alan.
>> I want to thank
you Crystal,
for having me here today
and I always want
to thank you for
your support and
your introduction.
I would also like to thank
all the attendees for
being here today to be
part of this training,
it's great to be with
you and yes if it's okay,
I would take one
second to give
a special thanks to
Claire Lord for all
her support and
encouragement in
this process too.
So I want to
give a short
introduction and
then I'm going to be
moving along here,
I am Alan Rasmussen.
I currently work as
a prevention specialist
with rapid panic
and community
services based
in cold upper Virginia.
I've been with this
organization since 2003,
working in the area
of mental health,
suicide prevention and
substance abuse prevention.
I'm a mental health first
aid certified trainer.
I am an adverse
childhood experience
master trainer.
I'm also a QPR
gatekeeper trainer,
having trained over
40,000 youth and adult
gatekeepers and
one other piece
of my background I
would do some work,
counseling services for
national counseling group
and in board of
counseling licenses,
qualified mental
health professional
able to work with adult,
children and I
also worked for
the University of
Virginia in the bachelor
of interdisciplinary
studies program as
a professor teaching
two criminal
justice courses.
One last thing
I'd like to say,
and I don't like talking
much about myself,
but I just want
to add this,
I spent 28 years
working for
the adult probation
parole services
with the Virginia
Department of Corrections
and retired in 2003
as the chief
probation parole also
having supervised
the officers
in [inaudible] and
Charlottesville.
So with that said,
I want to say this,
we are living in
uncertain times.
I think all of us know that
this Coronavirus
pandemic is
an extreme
adversity that has
taken a mental, emotional,
and physical toll on
individuals of all ages,
especially those
suffering from
a mental health
disorder or those
having experienced
trauma in the past.
We all can be experiencing
stress during these
uncertain times.
Uncertainty about
being safe,
healthy and protected,
uncertainty
over employment
and finances,
uncertainty over health
issues and changes in
health care coverage,
uncertainty
about childcare,
uncertainty about our
children's education
and safety in school,
uncertainty about
social contact,
uncertainty over community
[LAUGHTER] unrest,
uncertainty over current
events in politics,
and uncertainty
over the loss
of established routines.
Now people react
differently in
uncertain times.
Those with less
tolerance for
uncertainty and
those that are
less resilient may
experience low mood,
negative or down
feelings and anxiety.
When people are
experiencing stress,
they often cannot
think clearly or do
not have enough energy
to cope successfully.
Sometimes people
experiencing stress
needs support or
professional help.
This presentation
today is for
those experiencing
stress and for
those who are in
a position to
recognize and help
someone who needs
support and
help in these
uncertain times,
is important to
consider that
uncertain times can
be an opportunity for
all of us to learn to be
more resilient and learn
new ways of coping and
caring for ourselves
and others.
No one can avoid
the unexpected.
So I want to talk
to you today
about steps you can take
to help reduce stress
during these
uncertain times and
move forward in
a positive direction
in your life.
So what is stress?
Stress is a mental and
physical state that is
triggered by circumstances
that are not ideal.
Another statement
about stress is that
it's a physical
manifestation
of when we are feeling
overwhelmed and
unable to cope with
life's demands.
It can be triggered in
people of all ages,
you know sometimes
we think maybe
young people can't
be as stressed
as the older people
but it can be
triggered in people of
all ages and it does not
merely depend on
the severity of
the situation,
but also on the capacity of
the person and their
ability to cope with it.
Now, I want to
lay these points
out because we're going
to expand on these,
it's foundation information
for the presentation.
You know stress can
also be a motivator.
It can be an essential
component to survival.
So some common external
causes of stress,
major life changes, work
or school, relationship
difficulties,
financial problems,
being too busy,
children and
family and then
some common
internal causes of
stress that we'll
elaborate on throughout
this presentation can be
an inability to
accept uncertainty,
pessimism, rigid thinking,
or lack of flexibility,
negative self-talk,
unrealistic expectations or
perfectionism
and this all-or-nothing
attitude.
Now, I want to talk some
about some signs and
symptoms of stress
and I want you to remember
from somewhere maybe
my past presentations or
if you haven't heard those,
please know the
signs or what
we can see symptoms of what
somebody is
experiencing and
the key here is if
you see a sign,
I always like to think
what's possible,
and to me in all my years
of work anything's
possible.
You won't know
what's probable
or what's going on
with somebody if
you don't approach
them and talk
to them and find out
what's going on.
So we'll talk about
that towards the end of
the presentation but
that's why this
presentation
is not only for those
experiencing stress but for
those who could be
in a position to
intervene and help someone
if you see these
signs and symptoms.
So memory problems,
inability to concentrate,
keep focused,
poor judgment,
seeing only the negative,
anxious or racing thoughts,
constant worrying,
depression or
general unhappiness,
anxiety and agitation,
moodiness,
irritability or anger,
feeling overwhelmed.
Loneliness or isolation,
nervous habits such as
pacing and nail-biting.
Some other signs and
symptoms of stress can be
other mental or emotional
health problems,
aches and pains, nausea,
dizziness, constipation
or diarrhea,
chest pain, rapid
heart rate,
loss of sex drive,
frequent colds or flu,
eating more or eating less,
sleeping too much or
sleeping too little.
Withdrawing from others,
procrastinating on
neglecting responsibilities
and using alcohol,
cigarettes, or
drugs to relax.
I'm going to tell you
I do prevention work,
and if you look at the
signs and symptoms in
all the issues that
I worked to address
and prevention,
a lot of these are
similar signs and symptoms.
That's why I always say,
you don't know what's
going on if you
don't talk to the person
and say things like,
what are you experiencing,
what are you feeling,
and connect with them.
Again, I'll elaborate on
that more toward the end
of the presentation,
but I wanted to lay
that foundation that,
you don't know
what's going on
unless you check it out.
Emotional reaction
patterns,
I always like to talk about
emotional reaction
patterns because
people react differently
in the way they
react can tell
you whether they
are coping or having
difficulties moving
forward or if in
fact they are able to
move forward and cope.
This chart I love,
and I'm going to
say, "Okay, here's,
so let's say there's
some uncertain times,
anything we've mentioned or
any thing we
didn't mention."
I like asking
people that lists
could be incredibly large,
I always like if people,
what's an uncertain
time to you,
but how do people
react to a
mostly to uncertain times,
challenges or adversity.
Sometimes they
can get angry,
and I mean the
full blown anger
which is raise
they explode,
and to me that's always
a dangerous reaction in
the work I'm in
and it really
doesn't help you
move forward.
Sometimes people
just go numb,
they implode so to speak,
they can keep this anxiety,
depression, and
stuff inside
their feelings that size.
They don't express
them in a useful way,
and it can lead to
major health
problems actually.
Again, that's a
dead end street,
people are not moving
forward and that
a reaction,
response to
what's going on.
Now, sometimes people
can get upset,
and when I'm talking
upset they put
their feelings
out in a useful
way, and say maybe,
"I really don't like
this going eyes
really making me nervous,
it's upsetting to me.",
so when they do that,
they do have the option
to make themselves
the victim in
this situation,
or they have the
opportunity to say,
"this is going on,
what can I do about it?
What steps can I take
to move forward?"
When they begin to
cope and come up with
these strategies and
actions they can take,
they begin to do
what's called
resile and that's
when they're
becoming resilient.
When they're becoming
resilient and resealing,
they're actually
moving forward,
and they had the
opportunity to
learn and grow from
this situation,
get better, move forward
and actually thrive.
I'm talking more than
just the surviving here,
sometimes we want
to survive but we
want to come out of
situations learning,
growing and being
stronger than before,
and that's an
opportunity to thrive.
When you look at
these emotional
reaction patterns,
I think it's
easy to see that
emotional states can
affect our problem-solving,
abilities and
our resiliency,
our ability to bounce
back and move forward.
Positive emotions
can broaden
and strengthen our
ability to balance
our lives and manage
stress in the face
of adversity,
something we can do and
begin to do it
immediately and take
charge of our lives is we
can accept
responsibility for
how we react emotionally
to uncertain times
or other adversity.
I always encourage
people to try to keep
a good spirit and work
on generating that
positive energy,
and I want you to
think about this too,
if we see somebody
who's having
trouble, not being angry,
not keeping
everything inside
and they're not moving
toward working
on strategies
are options to
move forward.
Their emotional
state is definitely
affecting their ability in
a negative way to
solve their problems,
be resilient and
move forward,
they just don't have
that good energy
or good spirit.
We need to be ready to
jump in and talk
to them, say,
"Hey, this is what I see,
I care about you,
I want to help."
We need to be alert
that's one of
the biggest indicators
out people,
these stress, most
reaction patterns,
we need to be
alert with people.
Now, I also like to
talk about optimism,
and when you're optimistic,
you have better energy,
you feel more
self-confident,
you look forward
to the future
and you do not feel
trapped or discouraged.
Something people
can do is reflect
on how optimism is
helped them through
difficult times
in the past or helped
somebody else,
so if we can
try to maintain
that optimism
and say, "Hey,
we will find a
way out of this,
will come up with a
strategy, will get help."
Will you, somebody steps
at Allen's going to
talk about a minute
to make a difference.
Balancing life, in
uncertain times,
I want to talk about
some things that
people can do,
some things that we can
encourage people to do,
so maintain these routines
and habits that work,
they bring peace,
they bring yourself
confidence
and it build your
self-esteem when you
are doing things
these routines
there steady and
you're moving forward so
you can patch
yourself on the back,
keep healthy sleep hours,
we need to take
care of ourselves
physically, mentally
and emotionally,
but we need to
get our sleep,
and if you need to
do some research on
the studies on that
sleep is radical.
It has a major impact on
our ability to move
forward and be stable.
Maintain good nutrition.
I like these regular
eating hours.
You don't want to
sleep and eating
too late, too early.
Stick to your routines
and maintain
good nutrition.
Exercise,
that can help take care of
yourself physically,
get those endorphins going.
I mean you can always
do some things on
like hiking,
walking, whatever,
get on a indoor bicycle,
anything that can help you,
and do it to relax.
Do this stuff and
it helps you relax.
Constructive leisure
time activities,
anything you
enjoy that brings
you some peace and
helps you relax,
any hobbies, try to
stick with those
and do them.
I've seen a lot of
mindfulness, meditation,
and yoga programs going
on online, support groups,
all kinds of
things related to
mindfulness,
meditation, and yoga,
it's a great tool for
calming yourself down,
keeping focus, keeping
your emotional balance.
You want to foster
healthy and supportive
relationships.
All these supporting
relationships
are great, healthy
relationships.
Find the people
that show empathy,
can care about you
or listen to you,
you can open up and again,
I encourage those people to
reach out to others
and get involved because
not everybody is
willing to say,
''I got a problem,
I need help.''
We need to get in there and
move on forward
sometimes ourselves.
Avoid social isolation
and self-medication.
I'm a bug about this,
avoid new stories if
they increase anxiety or
I'll throw on agitation,
frustration, anger.
These new stories
and what's going
on can have a major impact,
just turn the stuff off.
It can help you sometimes.
Practice self-care by
taking time to relax.
Be kind to yourself too,
you don't want to
get into the habit
of beating yourself up,
you're always feeling bad,
you don't get this done.
That's going to ruin
your self-esteem,
self-confidence,
be kind to yourself and if
would comparisons to others
in your ability to
manage uncertain times
and try to reflect on
your past successes,
and pat yourself on
the back and
encourage yourself.
Balancing life and
uncertain times.
Again, let's see, examine
your emotional reaction
patterns like I
talked about and
learn to express
your feelings in
a useful way.
Skip the anger,
skip taking it in and
not dealing with it,
put it on a table and
express what you're
feeling in a way
that somebody
can understand
and help you.
Develop and learn
new coping skills.
I'd say there's a
lot of information.
I do a lot of trainings
on different types
of coping skills,
but you can Google
up and research
any way of coping
with any issue.
It's all on the
Internet, man,
so study it, learn them,
educate yourself on
some life skills
that you can use
to help you cope.
Control what you can and
avoid dwelling on things
you cannot control,
get into what
you can control.
If you can't, don't
make yourself
doubt about it,
just keep moving forward
and control what you can.
I always encourage
people to explore
community supports
and programs.
I'll hold off on the
professional
help if needed.
But I work with a lot
of coalition groups
in the communities
where I work,
and I find that
they bring community
partners together.
These community partners
are doing programs,
are aware of information
that can help people.
I mean, I know at
[inaudible] we have
a program called Healthy
[inaudible] community
partners and
their subgroups in
the other counties,
they have similar groups,
but they're go to
people to get
help and support
and know of programs
that the [inaudible]
we don't hear about.
I always encourage
people to get
that professional
help if needed.
We resist that, but when
you're feeling down,
you're feeling blue,
you're feeling depressed,
sometimes we need
professional help,
and it can make
you feel better.
There's no doubt about it.
A piece of this
presentation too
was talking about
helping others.
If you're in a position
and you're feeling good,
you're feeling
strong, and you
see someone in distress.
I want to encourage
you to get involved,
intervene, and work to
support this person.
Here's some
helpful things you
can say to start
that process.
I'm concerned about you.
Tell them what you see,
what concerned you.
Don't be afraid to talk
about what you
see with them.
It usually connects you and
makes them feel like
somebody cares,
and it could help move
them forward and give them
the support they need.
Hey, what are you feeling?
What are you experiencing?
Tell me what's going on,
and how whatever's going
on is affecting you.
How long have you been
feeling like this?
I can see that you were
distressed. I want to help.
Something seems to
be bothering you.
Do you want to talk about
it? Yeah, I don't know.
Just listening
to these things
myself makes me
feel relaxed.
I mean, it can
encourage somebody
to calm down,
open up, and talk.
I care, I will listen
and try to understand.
Those experiencing
stress and uncertain
times will
likely respond
positively to
sincere interest,
concern, and
active listening.
I always throw this into
my presentation
because I do
a lot of work in
the area of suicide
prevention.
I'd always rather be on
the prevention side of that
than reacting after
there's a loss.
Please keep in mind at
certain intense emotional
or affective states
may suggest a
suicide crisis.
Individuals who suffer
from depression,
I talked about
these warning signs
being similar for
different issues.
We don't know
what's going on.
We might get involved
with someone who's stressed
and they maybe having
thoughts of suicide.
We don't know, do
we check it out?
Please, these emotional
or affective states,
that may suggest
a suicide crisis
in individuals
who suffer from
depression or
who are showing
stress in uncertain times
can be intense desperation,
hopelessness, and at rage.
Remember that emotional
reaction pattern
of the full-blown
anger of rage,
abandonment, self
hatred, or anxiety.
We see these signs please,
these affective stage,
please get involved,
if you're talking
to someone
and it becomes
an emergency,
always remember
to call 911 in
cases of emergency and
get the appropriate
response.
In conclusion,
I want us to please
remember that
healthy strategies
can improve
our problem-solving
and coping
abilities and help
us all to balance
life and manage stress
in uncertain times.
Now with that said,
I'm going to turn
this back over to
[inaudible].
I appreciate you all
being in attendance.
Thank you.
>> Thanks, [inaudible].
I know there's
been a lot of
requests in the chat
for the presentation.
Great tools and reminders
as always so I
appreciate that.
There is a question,
and for others,
we do have a little
time for Q&A.
If you want to put
your questions in the chat.
[inaudible] is one
of our panelist.
[inaudible] had a question
in a conversation
happening in the chat.
I'm going to ask
[inaudible] to
unmute and post that
to you [inaudible].
>> Okay.
>> It's a tough
one [inaudible]
but you got it.
>> Okay.
>> [LAUGHTER]
>> Yeah.
One of my teachers,
she just couldn't
stop crying
at work yesterday.
I looked at some
of the things,
and I said a lot of
things that we pointed
out yesterday and trying
to help her cope with it.
When she went to
the folks and said,
what was going on, a lot
of folks were not
wearing masks.
A lot of folks were
not practicing
physical distancing
and she has
been quarantining
since March.
So this is the
person that just
hasn't been going out.
For a person who has been
in isolation,
this whole time,
five months now, to be
suddenly thrust into
a situation where
everybody's
lackadaisical about
the barriers.
It's just blowing her nuts
and she was crying all day.
She couldn't stop crying,
she was crying
by last night.
Again this morning they
tell her, "Toughen up,
you'll get over
it" [LAUGHTER].
Where can I go with
this with her?
>> Well, I'm going
to tell you Hermann,
that's unbelievable
that you
brought that up because
in my introduction
I've mentioned
the stress over
the uncertain times can be
social distancing and
as social contact.
I'm telling you, I'm
hearing this from
a lot of people and it's
a concern I have myself
because I can be out
doing something.
I've gone, oh gosh, there's
a whole group of people.
Nobody's wearing a mask,
who is supposed
to control this,
what's happening and
it makes you anxious,
it makes you nervous
and you start to think,
I don't want to
get this virus.
What I do with
people is just try
to keep them calm
and you do not,
I don't like saying this,
don't do things but you
do not want to say, "Hey,
toughen up, snap out
of it, move forward."
We talked about
that and that
the saving lives
presentation I did.
Yeah. You don't tell
people that you want to
just keep finding out
what they're feeling,
what they're experiencing
and then try to
give them support
and understanding.
Again, sometimes people
need some
professional help.
But she's having a
distress reaction
to this virus and the fact
that at the uncertain
types of people will
not wear the mask
and do the proper
safety precautions.
So fairly,
that's a great issue and I
don't know if I have
a complete answer,
but the things that
flop around is there
needs to be enforcement and
maybe wearing the mask.
Somebody needs to stand up,
make sure people
are doing that.
We can't control
everything.
We need to try to
control what we can.
If it's making somebody
so anxious that
they can't function,
they can't cope,
then I am just
saying I would
encourage some
professional help,
talk to a counselor
and get the professional
help because it
may be more than any
one of us know
how to handle.
To me, I really
think it may be
good to get some
professional supports.
>> Yeah, that's what
I suggested to.
I told her maybe go to
the doctor and just
get permission
like an ADA requests
to get permission
to telling work
for the first
few weeks until
people start to follow
the rules a little bit
better or something
like that.
But right now she does
[inaudible] in
that situation,
I think she is going to
need a break
from it somehow.
>> Absolutely.
In any supports
with work like
you're saying,
or any other supports
around here that can
be output difference,
but definitely if it
becomes very tough to
cope and move forward,
I would get some
professional
help and some guidance
too. It can help.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Thanks so much. I saw
a couple of other
questions in the chat,
but we're getting
toward the end.
I will send out,
when we send out the slides
and the recording
for this session,
I'll go back and send out
the recording for this
session that Alan
did a few weeks
back around suicide
prevention,
the saving lives
together session that
may answer a couple of
questions in the chat.
Someone asked a question,
I just want to call it out.
What do we do with people
who need this the most
are resistant to
webinars such as this.
Any thoughts on that, Alan?
While I pull up
my last slide.
>> You can't make
people listen,
you can't make people
go to the trainees,
but I'd just be
patient and I
figure over time,
maybe they'll
ultimately see that
need that I need some help,
I need some guidance.
I'm going to get involved
and check it out.
Timing can be everything.
Unfortunately,
it's a shame.
Everybody can't say,
let's give it a shot
because these are
times we need some
key information
and one other thing you can
maybe want to
consider sending out
that link about
the resilience
presentation too,
because there are
some key skills
and coping schemes and
strategies in
there as well.
>> Great idea,
I'll include that.
So you'll get three
recording links when you
get this recording session.
Next week, we're going to
take this conversation
a little bit further,
where we're going to make
it specific to guiding
our children and
teens through
uncertain times.
Acknowledging some
of the things that
our children may be
feeling and how we might be
able to help children,
whether they're in
our own homes or in
our programs or
schools or community.
Thinking about how we might
guide and support
children and
teens through uncertain
times as well.
As always, we just
want to thank you for
being here for joining
us at this time.
You can see this and
any previous recordings on
our Virginia Cooperative
Extension website.
We always welcome
your feedback.
I did post this link
in the chat box,
your feedback, we'd take it
and we look at that.
It helps us think about
what else we need to
do and what's helpful.
Alan, thank you again for
being disaggregate partner
for us and bringing
us such critical
information
and reminders and tools and
helping us navigate this
tough conversation.
>> Thank you Crystal,
thank everybody because
I'm feeling it,
I will mostly affected
the day by this.
Just feeling you
yet people say
you can't feel anybody
on the internet,
I'm feeling you and
I care about you.
Anything I can do to
help let me know.
>> Thanks, Alan.
Thanks Hermann
and Bethany and
thanks to all of you
for showing up today.
Let's do what we
can to take care of
ourselves and try the
best we can to take care
of those around us.
Having said that,
everyone enjoy
your Friday and your
weekend. Take care.
>> Take care Crystal
and Hermann.
>> Goodbye.
