Bouncing Back: How to be Emotionally Resilient

Emotional resiliency is the ability to adapt and recover from a negative experience. That means developing skills that help you identify, understand, and manage your emotions better in response to life changes. The last two years have been difficult on everyone and has taken its toll on all of our emotional well-being. You may have suffered a loss. The possible loss list is long and may include a loved one, employment, time, social activities, routine, financial stability, and optimal health just to name a few. None of us have been unscathed.

After experiencing a viral pandemic over the past two years, we are now facing a behavioral health pandemic. The CDC reports that COVID-19 cases were “highly positively correlated with anxiety and depression severity scores”.  Translation: COVID hasn’t just run down our bodies, but our minds too. Similar to the vaccine strengthening your body’s immune response, there are things we can do to build and strengthen our emotional response and become more emotionally resilient.

Many of us have been in situations where we have let our emotion (usually negative) take control. The result is usually additional negative consequences. Let’s say you had an argument with your partner in the morning and, not paying attention to the time, you were late to work. Throughout the day you are short-tempered with your colleagues, even though they had nothing to do with being late to work. If you continue to take your frustration out on your co-workers, the situation may lead to more negative consequences and a more negative experience, or hurt feelings at the very least. This is an example of not being emotionally resilient. You were unable to “go with the flow” and recover from your morning setback.

Ok, easier said than done! How do I make the change?

1. The first step is to identify the emotion.  Are you angry? Frustrated? Did you have anxiety? Maybe you have more than one emotion. You could have been angry with your partner and had anxiety over being late to work.
2. Once you identify the emotion, you can spend some time understanding it by asking questions like:
• What is the purpose of my emotion?
• What is it trying to tell me?
•  Is this emotion helpful?
•  How does my body respond to this emotion? (i.e. pounding heartbeat, sweaty palms, etc.)
• In what situations do I feel this emotion?
3.  After you’ve spent some time identifying and understanding the emotion, you can practice managing it – trying to control the emotion instead of letting it control you.
4. If the emotion is not helpful (probably not if you are trying to manage it) and you are able to understand how your body reacts to the emotion, you can start to intervene.
•  It is common to take shorter breaths when someone has anxiety.  When you have anxiety, you can practice breathing exercises that slow your breathing down.
• You may also go for a walk or step out of the situation for a moment to regain control. 
• Mindfulness, exercise, breathing, good sleep and eating healthy are all examples of practicing self-regulation daily.

The more you practice, the better you will become. You will find the little things no longer stress you out and you are building your skill to tackle bigger issues. Over time, you will be skilled at self-regulation and become emotionally resilient, experiencing overall improved wellness.   

If you are having trouble managing your emotions on your own, Clinton County Mental Health and Addiction Services is here to support you. Click here to learn more.

Richelle Gregory
Director of Community Services
Clinton County Mental Health & Addiction Services

Back-to-School Tips for the COVID World

The start of every school year is an exciting, but scary time. Add in new reopening guidelines and health concerns about COVID-19, and many parents have found themselves at a loss. Is it safe to send my child back to school? Can I commit to remote learning? While I can’t tell you which option to choose, I can give you some easy tips to help your family with that transition. Routine is important for kids, start practicing now so they can have an easier first day later.

Tips for Traditional Learning

•        Practice wearing a mask. Have your kids spend time each day wearing a mask while doing 
  everyday activities. Having trouble? Make a rule that they can’t use technology (watch tv, play on devices, play video games, etc.) unless they wear a mask. Chances are they want those privileges enough to comply. Pay attention to how often they touch or play with the mask. It defeats the purpose of a mask if they keep sticking their fingers inside! Be sure they know how to put it on and take it off properly, without spreading their germs all over. Make sure you have a few masks in the rotation. They need to be washed each day and you should always pack a backup.
•     Teach them to wash hands properly. Teach kids the five easy steps for handwashing—wet, lather, scrub, rinse and dry—and the key times to wash hands, such as after using the bathroom or before eating. Find ways to make it fun, like making up your own handwashing song or turning it into a game. Try the A, B, C’s or Row Row Row your boat. Proper handwashing includes 20 seconds of scrubbing, be sure the song you choose last at least that long.
•     Practice social distancing. Help your children learn what being 6 feet apart really means. Practice staying 6 feet apart while doing everyday activities.
•     Teach them how to open snacks and drinks. The more help your child needs to open things, the more hands will be touching their food. Practice lunch time at home so they can learn how to open items that might be packed in their lunch box.
•     Pack a water bottle. Water fountains won’t be an option this year, so consider packing a full water bottle every day.
•     Stay flexible. Schools are doing their very best to be prepared for every scenario, but change is inevitable. New things are learned every day and practice makes perfect. New protocols will be added or tweaked as needed once we start to learn what works best.

Tips for Remote Learning

•     Stick to a routine. Wake up, eat breakfast, and get dressed for school – the only difference in their morning routine should be the commute to their desk instead of their school. If you don’t set a schedule for learning it will be difficult to tear kids away from toys and fun and it may lead to arguments and frustration. Kids are used to a set schedule at school, they do it for their teachers and they will do it for you too! You just have to commit to having a structured day, focused on getting the learning done.
•     Dedicate a learning space. Set up an area in your home that you use only for learning. Make sure the temptations of play time, tv, and tablets are far away so the focus can be on learning. Set up your supplies just like their desk would be set up at school. Setting their space up can help them be excited to start learning again, a flashy new pencil never hurts either!
  
  
  
•     Sit in the best position for learning. Be sure the space you use is right for your child. Make sure screens are at eye-level and kids are sitting up straight. Lounging in the chair or on the couch isn’t conducive to learning. Have a fidgety kid? Try using the “prone” position (laying on the floor on their bellies.) This flexible seating option can sometimes help students focus when they are having a rough day.
  

No matter which option you choose, remember that your kids are looking to you for guidance. Be positive about the experience no matter how you are feeling. If you show them your apprehension, they are likely to be scared too. You’re doing great and we will get through this together!

To learn more, check out the additional resources the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has for back to school planning.

Krissy Flynn

Elementary School Teacher

In the Major League – CCHD’s COVID-19 Emergency Response

About two years ago, I transferred to the Clinton County Health Department (CCHD) after 8 years as Clinton County’s Recreation Director. Functioning in an emergency response for the first time, and being a former collegiate softball player, I see lots of similarities between softball teams and public health response teams.

Any time you start with a new team there’s training. CCHD offers lots of training, including ICS, or Incident Command System. Every new employee starts with ICS 100 and ICS 200 level training along with NIMS (National Incident Management System). ICS/NIMS training ensures that CCHD staff can function effectively as a team in the event of an emergency – kind of like preseason training. It also ensures that we are able to speak the same emergency management language as other teams, like Law Enforcement and Emergency Services personnel. We complete drills (think scrimmages) frequently to practice these principles in simulated events.

As part of a Public Health team, I always understood the possibility of being called up to the big leagues (like a pandemic). Fast forward to the 2020 Spring Season where I’m playing in the championship game against COVID-19!

Behind every successful team is good coach. In a public health crisis such as this pandemic, our coach, aka Incident Commander, is Clinton County’s Director of Public Health. Several Section Chiefs act as assistant coaches responsible for certain aspects of the game/incident. Branch Leaders and Division Supervisors oversee the work assignments of players in their section. The Incident Commander and Section Chiefs, along with several liaisons and the incident’s public information staff work together to develop a strategy but it is the Incident Commander who approves the plan for each operational period (game). The team carries out the plan and the ICS team has a lot of different players, like a softball team.

Planning Section Chief
during pre-shift briefing.

There is a Safety Officer. For this incident, the safety officer is a member of CCHD’s Environmental Health and Safety Division. She assesses safety in all aspects of our response – from large population-based safety concerns to smaller internal safety issues, like the time our office was using several types of disinfecting products that should not have been mixed. Thank-you safety officer!

Organization is key to a good emergency response. The incident’s Planning Section Chief facilitates weekly and daily briefings, as well as command and general staff, tactics, and planning meetings. Meetings stay on track under her guidance. A written plan with specific objectives is generated for each operational period.

Clinton County’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) has been handling logistics. They are connected to the NYS Office of Emergency Services and work to ensure that Clinton County has the supplies it needs. They’ve been thrown a few curveballs but have kept the flow of PPE (personal protective equipment), testing materials, etc. coming.

Public Information Officers (PIO) manage communications creating press releases, coordinating video events, and monitoring social media. I’ve been rotated into a PIO position several times during this COVID-19 pandemic as a member of the Public Information & Education Team. We have fielded more than 1700 phone calls from the public to date.

Several liaisons help us reach out to other teams. CCHD’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness Coordinator acts as a liaison to UVHN-CVPH and the Town of Plattsburgh Supervisor is filling the role of Local Government Liaison in this incident.

I&Q Team getting ready
to deliver quarantine
orders.

Last but certainly not least is the I&Q Team (isolation and quarantine). They’re like outfielders. They cover a lot of ground, are extremely reliable, and are counted on to pull out the occasional diving catch. The I&Q Team are the folks who do the contact tracing required for a communicable illness like COVID-19. They determine who each positive case has been in contact with and issue isolation and quarantine orders as needed. They communicate daily with those in isolation and quarantine. Not only do they check in on symptoms, they make sure these individuals have essentials (like food and safe housing), and check on their mental health, often with an assist from the Human Services Branch.

In addition to our starters, we also have a strong bench waiting to jump in when needed. Many CCHD staff members are functioning under a COOP (Continuation of Operations Plan), doing typical day-to-day work with some modifications, but constantly keeping up with new guidance and training so that they are ready to pitch in and help out at a moment’s notice.

As far as teams go, and I’ve been on a lot of them, this one is a World Series kind of team.

Molly Flynn

Senior Public Health Educator

Clinton County Health Department