Tag: stress

Six Surprising Reasons Why COVID19 Is Worse Than We Imagined.

The COVID19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown have led to us face losses on an unimaginable scale, and it’s not just our loved ones we are grieving for.

Grief is defined as ‘a feeling of intense sorrow due to the loss of someone or something’. Obviously, the intensity of that feeling depends on the closeness of who or what was lost and the impact it will have on your life as you move forward.

The current pandemic has led us to a situation where we are having to contemplate a multiplicity of losses in every area of our lives.

Types of loss

Loss of a family member or loved one

Death is by far the most common cause of grief but the pandemic has added an extra layer of problems to the grieving process. It may be that the loved one died in isolation, either chosen or enforced and not surrounded by family. The death may have been traumatic as a result of COVID19 or unexpected for the same reason.

Once the death has occurred, then the surviving family is left to deal with the arrangement, often remotely, without the physical support or contact that is essential for comfort at such stressful times. The funeral service itself adds another layer of stress as families are forced to grieve socially distanced or in isolation, without being able to comfort one another.

Loss of job or income

Despite Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s hastily put together support package through the furlough scheme that has saved people in the short term, it was never intended to be a long-term solution and now companies are starting to feel the impact as we have seen some surprisingly robust high street names seek help or go out of business completely; Cath Kidston, Victoria’s Secret, Monsoon, Oasis, Carluccio’s, Laura Ashley and Prezzo to name just a few.

Employees are now sensing a real fear of redundancy or unemployment as companies come to terms with life after lockdown.

In addition to this, there is also the physical sense of loss that one might feel at not actually going in to a place of work, meeting colleagues and losing that daily ritual.

Loss of relationships

Being forced together day after day for months, will have put immense strain on some relationships, where a couple are not used to being together for such long periods. In addition, there have been documented, and understandable concerns over people who find themselves living 24/7 with an abusive partner.

There is also the opposite, where a relationship may have just begun prior to lockdown and hasn’t had the chance to progress in a normal way and may never recover.

One of the biggest sources of strain however, must surely be for families of NHS and other front line workers who chose to self-isolate away from their own families to take care of COVID19 patients. This type of loss can be likened to that felt by families of soldiers departing for war. When a loved one says goodbye, there is a very real chance that this may be the last time you’ll see them.

Loss of events

While we have endured lockdown as well as we possibly can, time has still marched on and birthdays have come and gone, holiday dates, weddings may have been cancelled. All of these may well have involved a lot of planning and spending money on deposits. The stress of loss has been subsequently exacerbated by holiday companies being vague about if and when repayments will be made.

Loss of small pleasures

How many times during the lockdown have you almost suggested popping to the pub on a Friday, or going to a favourite restaurant for a meal?

Plenty, I’m sure.

But the lockdown has effectively stripped us of that freedom to choose what we do and taken away the small pleasures that we took for granted.

Loss of personal space

Before lockdown our lives were demarcated into separate compartments. We left the house to go to work or to the gym, now the boundaries between these areas has become blurred. Your spare room or bedroom may have become your office, your lounge may double up as a gym space. All of this adds to the stress of coping with the day to day impact of the virus.

There is no doubt that the multiplicity of losses we have had to endure has been unprecedented. And whilst we seem to be reaching the end of lockdown in many countries, we should prepare ourselves for the backlash, not of a second wave, but of serious mental health issues for large portions of the population as they try and come to terms with the sheer scale of what has been lost.

Why You Might Get The Response ‘Mum Was Mum’

When you first hear that phrase, it takes you aback. What do they mean? Why aren’t they prepared with dozens of stories? In this post, I’m going to look at some of the possible reasons why someone might say those words.

A few years ago, I asked a bereaved son to tell me about his mother, who he clearly loved dearly.

He thought for a moment and replied, ”Mum was mum.”. I have to say that I at the time, I was somewhat taken aback. How could anyone possibly be so dismissive about their mother? After all,this was someone who looked after you your whole life, cooked for you, cared for you, loved you unconditionally for over 50 years and all you can say is ‘Mum was mum.’

I found over time, the answer was repeated and so, I took some time to have a look at the facts behind this alarmingly offhand comment. And there were two areas to take into account.

The Background

I realised that, on the whole, the mums in question were usually in their 80s or 90s and so they’d been bringing up their children in the late 50s and early 60s and they were very different times.

At the risk of generalising from the specific, these mums had several things in common;

  1. They hadn’t gone on to further education.
  2. They didn’t have a career.
  3. They had married at a young age.
  4. Any job they had done had been given up to care for their children.
  5. They had been stay at home housewives while the husband worked.
  6. They hadn’t travelled widely.
  7. They didn’t have exciting hobbies to speak of.
  8. They didn’t have much time for hobbies or pastimes.
  9. They had largely been ‘in the background’ being mums.
  10. They didn’t have an extensive social life.

And so, despite my surprise at the phrase, that was exactly how they’d been seen. And it wasn’t meant in an insulting or denigrating manner. I just think that for many of these people losing a mum in their 80’s and 90’s, that was exactly how so many of them were seen. Despite the hugely important role they played, they had no chance to shine as individuals because the work they were expected to do was all-consuming, and that was symptomatic of the era they found themselves in.

The second thing to take into account is;

The Brain

In spite of the fact that our brains are without question more powerful than any computer ever built, if you ask a simple open-ended question like ‘Tell me about X’ it will freeze.

Why?

Firstly, there is just too much information to process in one hit and our brains go into panic mode. We experience what is called an ‘amygdala hijack’ ( https://www.healthline.com/health/stress/amygdala-hijack#overview ) where our amygdala ( the part of the brain that developed to control fight or flight responses to threats) takes control because of the stress of the situation and disables our ability to make logical and rational decisions. Thankfully, our frontal lobes have developed and override this, realising that the threat is not life-threatening and rational decisions can be made.

Secondly, we may be experiencing ‘attention saturation’ ( https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/metacognition-and-the-mind/201503/why-we-cant-remember-the-things-we-most-often-see ) a common occurrence where, if the same thing is seen on a routine basis it becomes less and less memorable. Consider growing up with a stay-at-home mum who cooked and baked every day, washed the clothes, cleaning the house, ironed, dusted and everything else and suddenly you’re being asked ‘tell me about mum’. What DO you say?

Thirdly, we may be experiencing ‘grief fog‘. Our brains are programmed to protect us and when something happens that we haven’t experienced before, especially something traumatic, like the death of a loved one, we have to begin to process the new experience. So, our brain attempts to focus and protect us simultaneously as it attempts to understand and make sense of what has happened.

Generally, with a little prompting and a little time, fond memories will come flooding back and I’m happy to say that on every occasion that I’ve heard the phrase ‘Mum was mum’, together we have always managed to produce a tribute that illustrates the wonderful qualities she possessed.

Surprising and Simple Ways To Ease Stress While You Sit At Your Desk

Dealing with families when they are at an emotional low point is likely to take its’ toll on anyone and funeral directors, arrangers, celebrants, and other funeral professionals are expected to do this on a daily basis.

When you invest so much of your own emotional well-being into giving bereaved families what they want, it is impossible to prevent your own emotional well-being from taking a bit of a battering. Little surprise then that funeral professionals are likely to suffer from ‘compassion fatigue’. ‘ a secondary traumatic stress disorder. Essentially, it’s about caring so much it begins to hurt.‘ https://www.frazerconsultants.com.

Sound familiar? What can we do?

In recent posts, https://celebrantglynbawden.com/5-reasons-why-its-hard-for-us-to-say-no/ and https://celebrantglynbawden.com/5-reasons-why-you-should-say-no-more-often/ I covered some of the reasons why its’ hard for funeral service professionals to say ‘No’ but why saying ‘No’ is actually important. In today’s post, I want to look at some simple and perhaps, surprising ways you can combat stress.

They aren’t expensive and they are things that anyone can do easily in just a few spare minutes.

Breathe

Breathe? Did I read that right? Yes, you did. Breathing is the one thing we all do but hardly any of us does it to benefit our health efficiently. One of the single best ways to reduce stress and to give you an energy boost is deep breathing and this can be done LITERALLY anywhere. Hard day? Try it while you’re sitting in a traffic jam on the way home.

Inhale through the nose for 3 seconds and exhale through the mouth for 3 seconds and repeat this 10 times. It is remarkable just how simple and effective this is. For more information on Perfect Breathing check out this site http://phttp://perfectbreathing.com/

Drink Orange Juice

It sounds unlikely to say the least but studies have repeatedly shown that food and drink high in Vitamin C, such as Orange Juice, reduce stress by lowering the levels of stress hormones such as cortisol. Two glasses a day should work fine.

Smile or Laugh

‘Smile, it might never happen!’ How many of us have heard those wonderful words of wisdom in the past? Having a laugh or even a smile does things that reduce stress in the long term. It can reduce cortisol levels, and release those endorphins that we hear so much about.

We all have phones, find a video of a cat on a skateboard and enjoy it for 5 minutes.

Pet a dog

It’s no surprise that many funeral homes have now started to have a resident ‘bereavement dog’ to hand. Stroking a dog can reduce blood pressure and ease anxiety and dogs are especially good at de-stressing us because over thousands of years they’ve been bred to be good companions and are particularly adept at feeling and responding to human emotions .

So, it’s not a mistake when people say that they are ‘man’s best friend’

Massage Your Ear

Or ‘auriculotherapy’ to give it its’ proper name. Our ears are home to multiple nerve endings and pressure points that benefit from being massaged. A gentle massage of the ear lobe can have effects like releasing endorphins ( again), boosting the immune system and stimulating relaxation.

Try rubbing the ear lobe between your thumb and forefinger, or gently tugging it away from you, stroking where the ear joins the head or massaging the cartilage which forms the main part of the ear for just a few minutes.

Act As If..

This is a strategy used by salespeople or for someone going to an interview to trick the mind into believing something else.

Our mind is such an astonishingly powerful tool, a simple trick like this can work wonders.

Because our mind is unable to differentiate between reality and what we tell it is reality, we can make it believe virtually anything. So why not tell your mind that you’re not stressed and in fact, you’re coping brilliantly with everything that’s thrown at you. Make sure that your physiological signs display the same as what you’re thinking, so slow your breathing and act calmly.

So, next time things start to get a little too much, why not try one or more of the above? Who knows, it might just help and if it doesn’t then you only wasted 5 minutes.

5 Reasons Why You Should Say ‘No’ More Often.

I did a post last week on reasons why it’s hard for us, as celebrants, to say ‘No’ to requests (.https://celebrantglynbawden.com/5-reasons-why-its-hard-for-us-to-say-no/) . The conclusion was probably that, even though we feel obliged to say ‘yes’ for all those reasons, we really should try and say ‘no’ more.

Let’s take a look at why saying ‘no’ is not just a good thing, it’s an essential thing for our long-term well-being.

Emotionally draining

As funeral celebrants we deal with people when they are often at their most emotional and vulnerable. They have just lost a loved one and are putting their faith into you to deliver a meaningful and heartfelt eulogy after only a handful of meetings at best.

It’s not possible, unless you’re made of stone, to avoid investing some of your own emotional energy into each service.

Our emotions are not a bottomless pit. Just as you’ll become physically exhausted if you exercise too much, you will become emotionally exhausted if you expend too much emotion. And it will come to a head eventually.

Quality will suffer

We get one chance to do what we do. One chance to stand in front of a grieving family and give a well-structured, well-written eulogy in memory of a loved one.

If we take on too much, we run a very real risk of the quality of our work being diluted or rushed as we try to prioritise. It’s like juggling. Throwing and catching one ball is easy. Even two, not a problem. Some of us may even be able to do three, but start getting to four and five then you’ll soon see how hard it is to keep up.

Keep your workload manageable and the quality will be maintained.

You neglect other parts of your life

Our lives are complex and complicated things. They are made up of many different areas. And for them to be successful, we need each of the areas to be running in harmony.

Of course, work is important. That’s what puts the food on the table and pays the bills but for a well-balanced approach, you need to pay equal attention to the other parts of your life.

Your family and their happiness is vital to maintain your own well-being. Take your partner and your children to the cinema or out for a meal. You need time for hobbies, even if your hobby is just catching up with the latest on Netflix, set aside some time to do it.

Self esteem

Saying ‘no’ is good for you. Yes, you read that right. How many times have you said ‘yes’ to something only to go away and curse yourself for giving in again and asking ‘Why did I say yes?’

Say ‘no’ once in a while. Take back some control of your life and you’ll feel better about yourself. That simple act will tell everyone, including yourself that YOU are in control and YOU are the one making the decisions.

Reduce Stress

Once you’re back in control of what’s going on in your life then a whole host of other good things start to happen. You’ll be less stressed for one and that’s got to be a good thing.

You can concentrate on doing the work that you have to the best of your ability, investing the time and emotional input that is needed without neglecting other areas.

You may find that you’ll be sleeping better, your appetite will be better and you’ll be healthier all round.

There’s is no doubt that saying no more often will benefit you in the short term and the long term. You’ll have more time to do what matters to you, so give it a go, say ‘NO’.