Saskatoon counsellor shares tips on dealing with stress from COVID-19 pandemic

A Saskatoon counsellor shared some tips on protecting your mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Penney Murphy, the owner of Penney Murphy & Associates, sat down with 650 CKOM’s Brent Loucks and Gormley to discuss the best ways to cut down on the stress of the situation.

One of her ideas is to avoid large, sweeping changes to your lifestyle.

“The brain loves routine and normalcy. Anything you can do to keep your regular routine is going to help you. Going for groceries, having your meals at the same time, going to bed at the same time. Just to get that sense of normalcy, and that will certainly help you calm down,” she explained.

“Once we’re back in our old regular routine, it does make us feel like we’re more in control of things, and not so helpless.”

She also emphasized putting an elevated importance on self-care.

“It’s always important, but right now, when we’ve got this huge level of stress and uncertainty, it’s important to get some good sleep, eat well, make sure that you’re doing stress management techniques… and be gentle with yourself,” she said.

“It’s not going to go away overnight, so we have to realize that we need to take care of ourselves and the people we love.”

You can hear both interviews at these links, or just click the On-Demand tab right here on ckom.com/cjme.com.