Hongkongers are going to have an atypical Chinese New Year due to the 5th wave of the pandemic. As we cannot dine at restaurants after 6 pm, many families are unable to have their reunion dinner outside home. We also cannot have our traditional walk in the flower markets after our reunion dinner this year due to the cancellation of the flower markets. For those who planned to have group worships by going for “yum cha” with their family members or friends in Chinese restaurants, they needed to postpone or cancel their plans due to the tightened restrictions in the maximum number of people for gatherings. Business owners, such as flower sellers, restaurant owners, or dried seafood sellers, might face losses in their businesses due to these restrictions. Staff of these business owners might also face salary cut or unemployment. All of these might increase our stress and anxiety related to having to adjust our lives according to the restrictions during the Chinese New Year. How can we cope with the uncertainties and stress in relation to this 5th wave of the pandemic? Can we still enjoy our Chinese New Year holiday with peace and joy?
First of all, we need to acknowledge our emotions in relation to these restrictions and to our uncertainty about the development of the pandemic. We may experience different kinds of emotions, such as anxiety, anger or sadness. When we experience some changes in our emotions, we need to learn to be self-compassionate and get in touch with our emotions. For example, we may observe the changes in our bodily sensations, when we feel that we have increase anxiety during worrying about our financial condition. We need to understand that it is totally normal to experience these negative emotions in the face of the 5th wave of the pandemic. For a simple exercise, put one of your hands on your chest and observe the bodily sensations of your chest when you feel worried about the pandemic. The anxiety may not go away quickly, but you will be able to embrace your anxiety by surfing with it.
Secondly, it is useful for you to learn some strategies to calm yourself down or regulate your emotions when you observe yourself experiencing anxiety, anger or sadness. There are a lot of exercises for you to regulate your emotions during this stressful period. Some examples are relaxation exercises, aerobic exercises, mindfulness practice or grounding. Abdominal breathing is one of the relaxation exercises useful for calming ourselves down. Gounding, by observing the sensations of our body touching the ground or other objects, seeing the objects of our surrounding environment, and hearing the sounds of our outside world, can also calm ourselves down when we experience high level of anxiety during any unexpected happenings in the pandemic.
Thirdly, it is also important for us to maintain our social connections during the Chinese New Year in the face of the pandemic. Despite that we may not be able to have our reunion dinner outside home, we still can enjoy our gatherings in small groups at home. We may also think out of the box and go for a reunion lunch with our family members instead of going for a reunion dinner. For those who have relatives or friends immigrated to other countries, we may connect with them through online chats and enjoy a virtual reunion with them. As we may stay home more often during the 5th wave of the pandemic, we may arrange more online virtual gatherings to maintain our social connections for social support.
Last but not least, in the face of the uncertainty in the pandemic, we may increase our resources for problem solving and obtaining more sense of control. Even though we know there are a lot of things out of our control, we can still generate a list of our resources in this stressful period. For instance, we may list out the names of our connections who might be able to help us for finding a new job if we are facing the threat of unemployment. We sometimes tend to underestimate our resources when we feel anxious in the face of uncertainty. By exploring our resources in an objective way after we calmed down ourselves, we could obtain some sense of control despite all the uncertainties.
It is beyond dispute that it is stressful for us to face all the uncertainties in the face of the 5th pandemic. Despite the fact that there are a lot of things out of our control, we can still equip ourselves with strategies to enhance our resilience to cope with the challenges. “We can’t stop the wave, but we can learn to surf.”
