 Thank you for staying with us on Y254 Updates. Tonight we are talking about coping with stress during the COVID-19 outbreak. Continue talking to us on all our social media platforms at Y254 channel. You can also talk to me at Patricia Murioki. Thank you Zakia for finding the time to be here with us tonight. I hope that you're staying. You've been safe. You're keeping safe. You're practicing every directive that has been given by the Ministry of Health. I do that to boots. I very hope that's enough. I don't think there's anything else I haven't done up to this moment, but we say there's always room for improvement. So we know this pandemic has found us in a time where we had not expected for it. So certain things have changed, certain patterns. How we used to live life has changed. We now know that we're supposed to be home by 9 p.m. We know that there are certain people who cannot go to work. They have to work from home. There are people who have also lost their jobs. So as we get this topic of coping with stress and how really people watching us tonight can learn how to do that, what really is important? How important is it to make sure that our mental health is okay, is on check during this pandemic? It is very important, Patricia, because at the end of it all, we need to remain sober because life is still going on. Good forbid, we are not saying that everyone will perish and we are not hoping for that and we don't even hope for that. So because of that, we don't want a situation where at the end of this all, then we come out like people who are actually sick. We don't want to be a sick nation. We don't have to be sick families. We don't want to be a sick world. So we have to remain mentally okay because we know that this is temporary. It is there to pass. So we shouldn't go with it. Let it go, but we remain sober. We remain healthy. We remain okay because we still have to function for the future. Okay, when you talk about stress, it's very difficult, I believe, for someone to even probably identify if they are going through stress. Probably if you're living with a loved one or in a homestead where you have more than one person, out then what do you look out for? To be able to identify and realize that Patricia is under stress and probably this is the type of help that she needs. Okay, thank you for that. Now there are so many things we have to look at and there are two categories of individual that we can talk about. The first category is the children and the second category is the adults. And their stress may be actually noted differently depending on what they do because we know that for children we can easily look at some of the things like how they play their play pattern. We can look at how they respond to directives that are given within the family setup. And we say for children mostly they become so irritable. And irritable it means that the children we know that they'll not want to sit at one place and just concentrate on something because they have this energy that is just they have extra energy and they need to use it and use it positively. So for them it's about going out to play, doing all these things, meeting friends. During that time when they're schooled they'll go to school and all this energy will be displaced there. But now because there's no school there within the house so they get irritated because they don't know what to do next. Rules have been formulated, they have to follow these rules. Even within the house setup they have for example to wash once all the time for them this is too much. So you realize that when they become a little bit adamant they don't want to do what their parent is advocating for. They don't know that this child is not okay because maybe initially they used to do it okay because it was not so often. But now when it's so often they get bored. So looking for that point where you see them that they're getting bored with certain activities that is one thing to tell you that they're actually going through stress because it is too much. The second thing when they become so irritable they cannot settle at one place or they become some of them will just be crying depending on the age like the young ones will just be crying all the time because they feel like they've been kept at one place and they want to get out and yet the rules do not allow. So when they become irritable they are not okay and the question will follow is what are we going to do about it? And when you come for the small children some of them will even have nightmares. You know depending on the situation because they may not have witnessed anything happening anything traumatic. But then when the rules are so strategic that to a point where they feel like they've been handcuffed then they may actually start developing nightmares. For some they'll even go through what we call repression going through the behavior that they used to have before and they actually overgrew them like bed weighting like you know thumbs are keying and all those things simply because they feel like they don't know the way out. So these are some of the native groups that will look at children insomnia or lack of sleep for some this one is actually very common that you realize some of them do not sleep and these days we know the pattern has changed very much that people actually stay almost overnight and the children are there too. So realize apart from that they may have a coordinated sleep simply because this is happening and sometimes they are patterned their routine pattern is actually messed up. Then when we go to the adults then there are some things that will look at even some of the adults actually become irritable but most of them will go through burnout. Now we always have a tendency of believing that burnout occurs when somebody for example has overworked himself or herself but no it can be the other way round even sitting in one place not knowing what to do can actually bring about burnout. Yes. So when you see this you realize that somebody may actually lose you know interest in the activities you know of choice that you want to do even bathing people don't bathe by the way these days that's so unfortunate we hear people are spending their whole day in pajamas and all that unless they have a meeting Zoom meeting which have become an in thing but these are some of the things and some of them especially those ones who have been laid off then you can imagine they go through a lot of emotional stress and some of them can be very aggressive and some of them may even go to an extent of you know involvement in drugs and substance abuse some of them may not be may have been alcoholic then but now all of a sudden they start drinking or they start drinking excessively they have been drinking but they were managing it it was normal but now they do it excessively and then you realize here there's a problem then when people become so aggressive like between the spouses somebody cannot ask the other partner a question this one becomes so like so angry at everything and you realize something is not right because when people become so angry they know something is not okay and these are some of the things we look at for grown-ups even in Somnia is there actually much or for some is even now hyposomnia hyposomnia where they just sleep they don't want to leave the bed you know somebody just sleeping because they don't know when I wake up where am I supposed to go but even in the process if they've lost their job and that's why this whole thing is happening then it's not good because they may actually sleep into depression so we need to take action there you've talked about very many areas and you've touched on children and some of the things that probably as a parent or as a guardian that you could try to pick on so now for a parent who has noticed that their child probably is going through all these stages for probably someone living with an adult and they feel that this person now sleeps more than they used to what now can we do now as a person around what now do you do to make sure that you're helping this person because we don't also to get to a point where by the stress now gets to tend to where it becomes depression exactly that's very true so again going with these categories again for the children the approach could be different in that knowing the activities of the children that they normally like you know you know performing then we say that when we notice or we pick these schools that they are actually sleeping into you know a lot of stress that may lead into for example even depression then we need to act we have to let first of all the children connect and this one we advocate for the grown-ups as well that connection is very important these days we're happy because at least we have all these gadgets the phones the laptops the computers and all that so when adults are having their meetings maybe through Zoom and Skype and all that we have also to allow children to connect with their peers and we can allow them for example time to have a phone call maybe through WhatsApp and even that depending on the age we have to monitor of course we have to see what is it that they are communicating with the other but then that's time to communicate with others is very important so we should not deny them the right to communicate because that way they are connected they get to hear from the others what they are doing and sometimes they even exchange ideas oh we did one two three and then the children can pick and also say mama we need to do one two three so that's very important the other thing is to keep on reassuring them and you cannot say we say you cannot pour from a cup that is empty you as a parent need to have your cup full you must have managed your own disasters to be able to help a child meaning you have to manage to be able to deal with your stress with your anxieties we know that this is something that has brought a lot of anxiety you know across board and even adults are also going through this but then for you to be able to help a child you need to manage your own anxiety and where you can't manage unknown as an individual or through the support of the family you have to seek help so that when you are okay you are able to help that child who is not okay so by helping this child it means you keep them connected you maintain help them maintain a daily routine you don't just let them because children are in the house then they can just do whatever the hell they want to do no let there be a routine we call it a new normal so develop a routine according to the new normal okay yeah they can have their mask on and play you know outside depending on the kind of people who are out there if you have a big compound let them play out there they don't need to have a mask if they are just themselves there nor any other intruder or visitor who is there but they can play ball and what I keep on telling physical activity is very important so as they play you are actually advocating for physical activity which is very important for them remember we invite them to go to the parks to go to school to jump all over the field but then the little that they can do let them do even when you don't have enough place outside even within the house you can even push your seats and let the children have fun don't say I want don't want my seat to be touched I don't know they are clean this is not time for cleanliness I mean cleanliness is important but you know there's that you don't become so strict with your staff simply because you feel like I don't know my coach needs to be to stay like this because maybe you are a perfectionist and whoever you are no you just try to create space for children because they need to have this participate in this physical activity you can dance with them you can you know jump up with them you can play ball with them all these things are possible even within the shortest you know the limited space possible okay so I would like us to talk about stigmatization as we also probably take some comments from social media we have had the CS for health say that they are now implementing home based isolation so now for people who are going to find themselves with patients or with loved ones who have COVID-19 we've had stigmatization be a topic since the virus the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the country how now can these people help this person recover through the recovery process and how can the society come in to make sure that we stop and end COVID-19 stigma a very good question Patricia because I have never understood where this stigma is coming from quote in quote this is flu it is not the kind of deserts you should actually look at it and say because of one to three this disease has befallen someone anyone can get to this it doesn't choose in gender status, class or race it just cuts across board so this stigma I think it actually may be coming in because any time there's something new people do not really understand the entire makeup of the disease so they may associate it for us unfortunately we are Africans there are so many things we believe in and so they may actually associate it with maybe your caste maybe switchcraft maybe something that you are not doing right in your family and that's why this is befalling you but that's not the case and that understanding we say that can only be done through psychoeducation so I say as we embark on home based care then the Ministry of Health has to look at something very important how do they encompass counselors in this whole setup because you cannot just let people go with their sick person in the house and then they have no idea how to actually deal with the psychological part of this person they can deal with it physically you know maybe emotionally through giving this person support but again psychologically this person they may not the caregiver may not actually understand and the patient may not understand so we say that it were possible and we say this is very very important for me I don't say we are possible it is possible because there are mental health workers outside there so many who actually just ready waiting to be called in and to help sometimes in fact most on the time they do it pro bono so let them come in of course we don't I don't sit here and advocate that it should be pro bono everything people are getting teller is anyway but where we can help we do help actually and the most important let them accompany these you know health care workers these people who are taking care of the sick because any time we say that somebody has to remain in the house it means that maybe at one point there will be a nurse who will be coming into check and where there are reason maybe they are giving directives from the hospital that this is what you are supposed to do because when a person calls they're supposed to be giving all the information on how to handle this person so there should be a special area where a health I mean a counselor or a psychologist can be slotted in so that they are giving them to come in adhere to all the directives but able to help this maybe once a week or twice a week to come and help this family psychoeducate the family give them the psychological support show them give them the tenets on how to deal with such institution to minimize stress you know and also to minimize harm because by minimizing stress it means that this person understand what is corona all about what is covid all about what am I supposed to do why am I actually in and also to alleviate that pain that is associated with stigma because when a person is actually educated on what covid is all about and what it entails and how it comes in and how it goes then they may not actually feel that this is you know something so horrible or something out of the norm it's just a disease like any other and we can deal with it so counselors, psychologists have to be given a slot to be able to be able to help this individual and they say that one is very much possible and I sit here advocating for that okay let us look at some of the comments that we have we have solokis say information as stress CTE me and Zajana so for such a person who is watching us tonight and probably this person has found themselves in very many faces in life where they found themselves stress how can they cope now with stress we're not only now addressing the covid-19 stress but for such a person watching us tonight this is what they have expressed what do you think can work for them soloh has said there because I'm looking at it from a very different perspective to mention a stress it's because this person has the inner resources to deal with stress people are never the same that's what we need to understand it doesn't mean that even during a pandemic like this everyone will go down you know so stressed I don't some people actually are making the best after this whole thing they come up with new skills identify their new skills you know they've tapped their inner resources and come up with some of them are cooks I know Patricia what you have to I know you too you are good at that I congratulate you for what you are doing thank you so basically it doesn't mean that because it's a pandemic everyone will go through stress there are some people who will go through what we call eustress eustress is positive stress okay there's what we call distress which is now the negative stress now eustress is mostly temporary is not permanent something that a stress just happens you know comes in simply because a situation is temporarily happening but when it's over the stress will be over okay so most people have the inner resources to deal with this so for these ones they say lianza so it means they are able to cook these are the people we need to even you know have them to help help others and help others we are not able to do that and I'm sure they have a word or two to tell this other so when we get them we tell them can you be part of us can we be able to help these and give them you know the tenets of how you deal with the situation because you may have actually the strength that the other person does not have okay thank you very much Zakia for really finding the time to come and talk about this I hope for everyone who is watching us tonight you've been able to take one or two from what Zakia has said tonight please if you find yourself in a situation where probably you're going through stress find the coping mechanism such as maybe try to read a book try to talk to someone I think talking to someone is always the best therapy that really works for people try to get out and even if you can go for a workflow in every directory that has been given just put on a mask and go and just be in the presence probably of just some good environment and all that is going to work for us as we all continue fighting COVID-19 all I can say from Y to 54 we wish you a very good night my name is Patricia Murioki