Hey, it’s OK to feel stressed or anxious. Now repeat that to yourself.
As we all continue to practice social distancing amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, a lot is uncertain right now and you may find yourself feeling way more stressed out or isolated lately, and Dr. Drew Pinsky is offering ways to manage and reduce that anxiety in healthy and “proactive” ways.
As part of E!’s new Wellness Wednesday, the celebrity doctor is offering tips on how to manage and reduce your stress and anxiety while social distancing.
“I think as we’re moving our way through this people are becoming increasingly aware that mental health is one of the things we need to pay a lot of attention to,” Dr. Drew explains in the video above, “that if we don’t, the consequences will come to bear.”
And one of the 61-year-old doctor’s biggest tips is a simple one: don’t ignore how you are feeling.
“Rather than let that anxiety paralyze you, lean into it, dare it to come on, bring it on, let it come,” Dr. Drew encouraged, “and you may find internal resources you did not know you had.”
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If you do find yourself needing some external resources, however, Dr. Drew offered several tips, including getting some time outdoors, exercising and keeping structure to your day.
“The other thing we need is a future, we’ve all been robbed of our future by the quarantine, all of a sudden we didn’t know how to plan our future,” Dr. Drew explained. Look forward to there being specific things that we will be asked to do to get out of this and consider how you’re going to plan your future.”
He continued, “There is a future coming and you should look forward to it just the way you always did. That’s very important: hope and planning and structure in our day.”
For more tips on how to manage the stress and anxiety you may be feeling right now, watch the video above to hear from Dr. Drew, who also advised anyone finding trouble “functioning” to reach out to your personal physician.
And you can go to Drdrew.com for his podcasts and live-streams, with ASK DRDREW is also available at Drdrew.tv.
Watch NBC News Special Report: Coronavirus Pandemic Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT on NBC, MSNBC and NBC News NOW. For the latest updates on the coronavirus pandemic and for tips on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19, please visit The Center for Disease Control and Prevention at https://www.cdc.gov.