The COVID-19 pandemic has done more than affect the physical health of people around the globe. It’s also taken a massive toll on our mental health; collectively and as individuals.
The COVID-19 pandemic has done more than affect the physical health of people around the globe. It’s also taken a massive toll on our mental health; collectively and as individuals. Our LISTEN WELL host Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan takes a deep dive into mental wellbeing and the pandemic, examining select groups that may have been disproportionately affected like women, students, and frontline workers. Our discussion focuses on resilience and how we can build up strategies to combat the negative impact, and includes input from General Practitioner Dr. Garth Manning, and guest advocate, Sheikha Al-Zain Al-Sabah, a previous deputy Youth minister and a member of the Ruling Family in Kuwait.
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Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes and is not intended to replace discussions with your healthcare provider. All decisions regarding your care must be made with a healthcare professional, considering the unique characteristics of your personal situation. The opinions expressed are the opinions of the individuals recorded and not the opinions of Viatris. Individuals featured in this podcast may have participated in the past or may be current members of an advisory group for Viatris.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Welcome back to Listen Well. On this episode, we'll be discussing the topic of building resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. We know the pandemic has had a profound effect on all of society around the globe. We'll do a deep dive into understanding how this has affected individuals with a special focus on specific groups such as women, young people and students, as well, as frontline workers. Paying particular attention to the effects on their well-being. We'll also have a discussion about resilience, focusing on strategies and mechanisms to improve it. Resilience is such a vital concept that helps reduce the negative mental consequences of stressful events. We are very excited to have two special guests on today's show. Dr. Garth Manning, who has been a family doctor and is an expert in the area of general practice and primary care. As well, as Sheikah Al-Zain Al-Sabah, who was a previous Deputy Youth Minister and a member of the ruling family in Kuwait. We hope that our discussion today, will help you to build your own resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, for any other stressful life event. And also help you to decrease the negative consequences of stressful events in general. So sit back, relax and listen well.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Well, it's a great pleasure to have two amazing guests with us today. First of all, I'd like Dr. Garth Manning to tell our listeners a bit about himself. Dr. Manning, welcome, and I'd love to hear more about you and your work.
Dr. Manning:
Hello, everyone. I'm a family doctor, and have been for 40 years. Was not in clinical practice in more later, the later years because I was the chief executive of the World Organization of Family Doctors. So I oversaw the organization, which has 550,000 family doctors all over the world. One of my particular interests is mental health, and I am a member of the WONCA working party on mental health, hence my involvement with this podcast today.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Fantastic. And Sheikah Al-Zain, tell us about yourself and your work. I know you've done a lot of work with youth as well.
Sheikah Al-Zain:
Hello. My name is Zain Sabah, and I am the chairman and CEO of National Creative Industries Group. it is a multi-media studio based in Kuwait that deals primarily in the facilitation, incubation, and production of quality media projects for the MENA region and beyond. I also had the great pleasure of serving as deputy minister at the Ministry of State for Youth Affairs in Kuwait, and had also the pleasure of working with Arab youth all over the Arab world.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Thank you so much for joining us. I wanna start off with a question for Dr. Manning. You know, we're talking about the COVID-19 and its effects on people. What have you seen as effects of restrictions on people's well-being?
Dr. Manning:
I think it's been fairly major. I think for people who have had existing mental health conditions, it's often worsened their mental health. And even for people who previously have had no mental health issues, I think, incidences of depression and anxiety have certainly, risen. There were so many different factors working, I think. You know, with lockdown there was associated loss of employment. There were financial stresses. Parents were having to navigate the challenges of home-schooling while at the same time probably trying to work from home. And I think particularly for school-age and university students, they were isolated from their peers, and they lost their social networks.
And this all created the perfect storm really, then, in turn, we saw an increase in domestic violence and abuse. We've seen an increase in alcohol-
consumption. And we've seen other substance abuse. So it's been a really, really challenging time in terms of mental health.
Narration:
As we’ve mentioned, we’ve seen a rise in domestic abuse and substance abuse through the pandemic, and it’s important that we mention that if you or a loved one are in a situation where you’re struggling with domestic violence or substance abuse, there are resources available to help you. In an emergency, please call your local emergency number, 911 for the US and Canada, and know that there are local helplines and organizations ready to take your call. We have included some of their information in the notes for this show.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
You know, even before COVID-19, a loneliness epidemic worldwide has been talked about. And I wonder if, the people you've worked with, whether in clinical work or in the organizations you work with, have they talked about loneliness increasing? Especially with social distancing. I don't think any of us heard the word social distancing before COVID. And suddenly it's in the common lingua franca.
Dr. Manning:
Yeah. I think the social distancing and the isolation have had a fairly major impact on particular groups I think the elderly who were able at times to get out, even just going for a walk and meeting people, or going to the shops or something like that; suddenly they didn't have those social outlets,
because of social isolation. People may not have been allowed into their homes. So I think they became very, very isolated. People who were particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, who also went into isolation for prolonged periods, I think it really had quite an adverse effect on their mental health.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
And, in turn, has that, really led to mental health diagnoses for at least some groups?
Dr. Manning:
Yes, I think it has. I think that will continue for some considerable time. And that's the problem. know, I- It's not something that's just going to get better, because COVID is currently waning. I think a lot of the depression and anxiety, and the, and the concerns, will be ongoing. And so I think as family doctors we're going to be faced with that for some considerable time.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
And I think for doctors as well it was, the work/life balance, especially in the early days, had a tremendous effect. Is that something you saw in the, in the groups you work with?
Dr. Manning:
Absolutely. A huge, huge effect. I mean I think in most countries in the early days, there was a shortage of personal protective equipment. And I think that, and so people became very, very anxious because of that. And then even when PPE became adequate, they wouldn't, departments and hospitals were just getting overwhelmed. And doctors and nurses and other health professionals, you want to make people better. And in many cases they weren't able to make people better, and they were, they were seeing a lot of people dying on their shift. And I think that, you know, their ability to cope just became worn down. And I think a many of them got the stage of burnout where they simply, really weren't able to cope very well anymore.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Yes, so a lot of people were experiencing burnout. And much was made in the early days about, doctors having to choose who would go on a ventilator, and who would not; and that leading to tremendous conflicts within their value system.
Dr. Manning:
Absolutely. as I said, doctors want to make people better. Most of us work, with some limitation of resources, but normally, there, it would not be so critical as to, you know, whether somebody lived or died because they could go on a ventilator or they couldn't go on a ventilator. So I think, you know, this was a huge conflict, I think, for health professionals.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Absolutely. Sheikah Al-Zain, you've worked with a lot of, youth. You've done a lot of social media work. What did you see happen in the early days of the pandemic with, whether youth or different age groups, with regards to social media?
Sheikha Al-Zain:
Well, technically what happened was isolation-anxiety when we … That's what I saw happening just across all fronts. And when we couple these two emotions together, it puts us at a high risk of falling into a rabbit hole of misinformation. That's exactly what happened. It doesn't help that these two factors have been major culprits in the increase we see in our digital screen-time. You know, that pop-up that comes up on your iPhone, or on your handheld device, and says your screen-time has increased by, like, a hundred percent
And this further contributes to our information overload, and further impacts our public health and well-being. It's really a very vicious cycle. And the more isolated-
and anxious we become, the more ripe the ground tends to be for the spreading of information, or misinformation, or "information pollution" as I like to call it. And with billions-
of people being isolated in their homes, especially in the onset of the pandemic, in order to contain the- infection, the uncertainty has really risen to mass hysteria and panic. And we've seen this all over-
the world. And, you know, in this process there has been a hidden epidemic of information, I believe-
that makes COVID-19 stand out as a digital infodemic, really. From the onset of the pandemic, we had, we've been bombarded by repeated and detailed content about the virus, geographical statistics. Even somebody that has no idea how to read a bunch of numbers, absolutely became an expert. And multiple sources- of information, it came from all different ways and all, from different sources of information. And this all led to chronic stress and confusion on top of the isolation and anxiety. Add to this, you know, the- the plethora of misinformation, the rumors, of course the infamous conspiracy theories that make their way into our phones and get circulated every day. And-
with increased digitization, or digitalization, media penetration has increased exponentially with a more significant number of people aiding in this information pollution.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
I love that phrase, "information pollution," because, you know, pollution, as we know, physical pollution, air pollution, water pollution, is hazardous to our health. And it sounds, the way you're describing it, is information pollution can be very hazardous to our health as well.
Sheikah Al-Zain:
Oh, absolutely. And we all know that curiosity is a basic human instinct, and socialization increases it. But incomplete understanding, partial or biased interpretation, hearsay, rumor mongering, and even inadequate communication, are the main ways that give rise to this kind of pollution, this information pollution.
And so this leads to a type of really pollution of our overall environment, digital, media, and otherwise. And they have been, Doctor-many qualitative and quantitative studies done on social media, specifically in human behavior, during, the earlier outbreaks of other health crises like SARS, and I think influenza as well. They've all revealed that false, and maybe perhaps commonly held beliefs, generalizations of traditional beliefs, negativity bias, social mod- you know, any kind of-
social modeling of rumors or over-analysis, or any sort of, kind of faulty interpretation of science, coupled with fear, really, amplifies this. And they've all contributed-
even more to the infodemic's spread.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Dr. Manning earlier talked about feelings of anger, depression, anxiety, fear, loneliness. I've seen research that looked at very specific groups all across the world that were differentially affected by some of these experiences, these feelings, even some of these disorders, especially focused on young people, on students, and on women. Sheikah Al-Zain, how have you seen these groups affected in the people you work with, among these populations you interact with? Did you see what the research is showing?
Sheikha Al-Zain:
Absolutely. The pandemic has really exposed sharp economic-and-social inequalities, and has certainly widened already existing gap with the most vulnerable in society, especially women and girls. They've been un-equally impacted just by virtue of their gender. Healthcare access for women and girls has been disrupted, especially in the early days of the pandemic, because many healthcare clinics and the system at large really became overwhelmed with the pandemic. And healthcare, especially the healthcare centered on women's needs, took a backseat to all things COVID related.
Also, I wanna add to this that confinement and lockdowns all around the world increase gender-based violence amongst the women and girls. And the context of the pandemic really has made it more complex and difficult for a woman to access support. Obviously it doesn't even, it doesn't help that the majority of legal, police, and health services, were overwhelmed at the time, or were focusing their efforts on pandemic-management response. And that meant essentially that women and girls had no choice but to stay locked up with their abusers.
Which is a very scary thing And so for students and –
young people … Yeah. And-this affected students and young people in general, not just women and girls. I should stress that.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Mm-hmm And so, uh, coming back to Dr. Manning,
I know from previous conversations, in your heart of hearts you're a family physician. How do you think this issue of kids being locked, out of schools affected the family unit? Not just the child dynamic, and their peer dynamic, but the whole family dynamic?
Dr. Manning:
Well, I think the family dynamic was often fairly badly affected anyway. We are social animals. We actually usually like even though we sometimes would deny it, we like to go to work. We get away from our family, our family get away from us, for a few hours each day. You come back with your experiences. You sit and chat. Suddenly, you know, families were together 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And I think and, you know, if people were living in flats or apartments so the kids didn't even have a chance to get out to play, then I think it became a very claustrophobic and potentially explosive environment.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Absolutely. You know, I wanna shift gears
a bit and, and shift, positively talk about some of the things people did to develop resilience. So, starting with Sheikah Al-Zain how have you seen some of the most affected populations, especially youth, deal with the pandemic in positive ways, or maybe in surprising ways?
Sheikha Al-Zain:
Well, you know, despite the challenging circumstances, we know, that our lessons, and young people, are just naturally more agile. They're adaptable and they're resilient during those challenging times. And we have seen this come to life, truly, during the pandemic. When a crisis hits, it is easier to respond if you already have useful tools in place and if you're prepared to innovate, reshape and move fast, and who does this better than the youth? They are digital natives. They have high risk tolerance and have access to a world of information, at their fingertips, really.
And young people, you know, during this pandemic, have become super active on social media on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Instagram live, especially. Clubhouse, they informed us, they entertained us, they inspired us and continue to do so today. In fact, many new stars have been birthed out of the, the COVID pandemic, as a result. And with adversity, always, you know, we know this, comes opportunity. And the youth understand this fully, more than any, any other demographic.
The youth, essentially, during the onset of this crisis, we began to see them show up, and volunteer. To really step up to volunteer in numbers that we've never seen before. In communities around the world, they formed networks and innovative solutions to raise awareness, about the pandemic and to help ease lockdown and to distribute food and supplies to all those who were unable to make it out to the grocery stores. For instance, we saw this so beautifully done and orchestrated by our own youth community here in Kuwait, Doctor. And they came out unified, they came out prepared, and they came out strong. Truly something-
to be immensely proud of. Also, another positive note here is the massive industry disruptions caused by the pandemic created a multitude of entrepreneurial opportunities for youth. And again, the youth population understood this so well. Many chose, entrepreneurship over traditional employment and education. The fact that they were inherently entrepreneurial, they took it upon themselves to become even more literate in newer technologies and newer lifestyles, and they've grown to become, I would maybe describe them as super experimental, and have-
in the process, allowed, even just for the larger growth of a culture that is not afraid to try new things.
Actually, I think there's a recent study that EY did, that more than half of GenZers today, especially under 25 years old, said they hoped to own their own business in the next 10 years. And given all the different variables at play here, Doctor, this is not surprising, at all. On the climate front-
you know, on the IT front, on the creative front, youth are building for the future. You know, they are shattering the, the glass ceiling, they're using their energy and, their agility to proactively provide solutions that will sustain, and they will scale, as we move forward. And, through them, we will learn to live within a new existence, really. and-
perhaps, even make COVID a thing of the past.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
What can we do to help build resilience during COVID-19, and even moving forward? What are some steps people can take?
Dr. Manning:
Well, I think of resilience, really, as almost a personality trait, of being able to cope, and some people are able to cope much better than others with stressful or traumatic events. But I think, you know, for those- for those who are less resilient, I think there are some strategies that we can offer them to try and, and, and help them, and to reduce their stress levels and anxiety and depression. And these'll be things like, you know, and encouraging them into a routine. So, as much as possible, stick to the same routine as you always would have. Get up at the same time, eat meals at the same time, take medication at the same time, and so on.
Dr. Manning:
We talk about rituals. So, we have developed new rituals, such as having dinner virtually, with friends or family. I mean, many of my friends might have ZOOM drinks, or might, had family quizzes by ZOOM throughout lockdown. And to create new rules for maintaining lifestyle, so going for a short walk each day. Limiting your time on social media because, you know, with Sheikah Al-Zain has already mentioned the problems that overexposure to social and other media creates. And look at strategies to lower cigarette and alcohol and, drug use. And I think during, during lockdown, I think a lot of people, actually, instinctively took a lot of this on board and did go out for walks, and ate more sensibly, took more exercise, and, in fact, in many cases, are living a much healthier lifestyle now, I think, as a result. So, I think the lockdown has been quite beneficial for, for a large group of people.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Maybe coming back to Sheikah Al-Zain, and Dr. Manning, if you wanna chip in on this, as well, another term I heard a lot in the beginning of pandemic was something called "toxic positivity," and that expressing positivity too much could be something actually toxic to one's mental health, so I want both of your takes on that, if you may. Maybe Sheikah Al-Zain, if you can start?
Sheikha Al-Zain:
You know, it is very unrealistic to have that pressure of wanting people that are going through a crisis to feel like they need to be positive regardless of the circumstances, I don't think it's realistic at all. And we all know that meditation quite literally become, you know, means, becoming familiar with yourself, and that means with all your ups and downs, and it's not necessarily just being positive, and this is where, kind of, it irks me, this phase of toxic posit-
Indeed, I absolutely agree, with the term "toxic pos-" you know, "positivity." However, I wanna stress that we kind of, bring it on ourselves when we assume that things are just black and white and there are no gray areas in between. Being mindful, taking on some sort of meditative positioning within yourself just requires you to really get to know yourself.
And it's just such a deep ocean of, incredible layers of emotion and thought that lives within us and I feel that we are just simplifying it when we say, "Let's be positive." Let's allow ourselves to be up when we feel, you know, that we need to be up, be grateful, absolutely, for what we have in this moment, but, also, really, allow ourselves to feel kind of to live in that trough in between-
those waves
Dr. Manning:
I would agree with Sheikah Al-Zain, I think encourage people to be up when they're up and accept that there are going to be days when, when things aren't going so well, and it's perfectly okay to be down in those days. But to, you know, it's a falsehood to constantly project this positivity, 'cause life's just not like that.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Yeah. You know, I kind of want to get a little bit personal here. So, I can speak for myself saying that some of these strategies both of you have talked about help me even as a human being tremendously in the early days of the pandemic, having a routine, trying of course, I was working as a physician so having, trying to have that work-life balance, taking a walk every day, getting some exercise even though the gyms were closed, I wanna ask both of you, again, starting with Sheikha Al-Zain, have you used any of these strategies, whether the ones I just mentioned or the ones we talked about earlier? And if so, what were they, what helped you the most?
Sheikha Al-Zain:
for me, I think what really drove me forward and allowed me made me feel hopeful every day was engaging with the community, and doing that holistically.
The more I engaged with like-minded folks that felt the same way I did, whether, you know, I felt frustrated, whether I felt joyful, whether I felt, whatever that emotion, that's that kind of scale of emotion was, I always looked for people that I can speak to about that, and that I could perhaps vocalize and, and then, we start to almost intrinsically feel each others' gaps, and take care of each others' needs, and I think that the sense of community really just helped, me, really, just go through, especially the first kind of few months of the pandemic.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Yeah.
Sheikha Al-Zain:
In one piece.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
One piece is important, yeah. And Dr. Manning?
Sheikha Al-Zain:
One piece is important.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Yep, absolutely. Dr. Manning, any strategies you personally used?
Dr. Manning:
Yeah, I was working right through the lockdowns and workload had went up since we were having to do everything virtually, so, in fact, that was that made life fairly challenging. But routines, certainly sticking to the same routine as much as possible, my wife and I got out for walk every day, you know, luckily the weather, which in Northern Ireland is often not particular good weather, weather was fairly good, so I took up gardening for the first time, and to my surprise find that I quite enjoyed it. And we renewed acquaintances with friends through ZOOM, which was really interesting, so that, that sort of expanded our sense of community, again, I think. Because life is often too busy, and you mean to do things never quite get right. Because everybody was in the same boat, you could email somebody and say, "Oh, would you fancy meeting, you know, having a ZOOM meeting for an hour this evening and it was a great way to catch up with friends and family. We also inherited elderly relatives of a friend so, you know, he lives overseas and his 90-year-old mother and his 83-year-old aunt were both living alone and clearly isolating. So we were, we were helping them and I suppose that gave us a slight sense of purpose and actually helped them, as well. Because even though we weren't going into the house or anything else, we could drop shopping at their door and they could come to the door and, and actually chat to us and we were the only people that they were seeing. And, you know, we did that two or three times in a week.
So to an extent, you know, that helped us just as much, I think as it helped them.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Right, yeah. Giving to others giving and receiving meaning. It's amazing to me, how many people have talked about little things like, picking up a new hobby or a short walk. It's amazed me how many people have told me that they started noticing things in their neighborhoods that they didn't notice before just because of the rush of life.
Narration:
It’s heartening to hear that there have been some positive effects and behaviours put into place through the pandemic. It might be helpful to take a moment and reflect on your own experiences over the last year and a half, and make note of what you’ve discovered or practices you’ve implemented in your own life that may have boosted your own resilience.
All of this really speaks to resiliency and that brings me to the, maybe the last part of this, episode, talking about healthcare and healthcare teams, to both of you because Listen Well is, is a health-focused podcast.
Let me start with Dr. Manning. What is the importance of collaborating with a healthcare team especially during times like this?
Dr. Manning:
Well, I'm a family doctor and family doctors generally, have a long standing relationship with their patients and they're well placed to understand personal family and community context. And I think they appreciate, the interrelationship between physical and mental health. And of course, you know, family doctors, are only one part of a primary healthcare team. So I think that whole team working together, all have specialist skills that they can bring to helping people.
Dr. Manning:
And of course you know, people always think of drugs as being one of the first lines of treatment. But I think in, in a lot of this, stuff it's not, it's non-pharmacological interventions that we're particularly looking at. So it's encouraging positive behavior, it's encouraging people in physical activity and better nutrition. You know, there are all sorts of other non-pharmacological things that we can offer to our, to our patients to try and help them, to develop this resilience that we talk about.
One of the challenges, we face with adolescents particularly is that they don't know how to use health systems.
we teach them how to cross the road safely. We teach them all sorts of other things but we don't teach them how to use health systems. And so sometimes, they just don't know independently without their parents, they don't know how to access healthcare.
Dr. Manning:
but it's trying to think ahead and think how can we help adolescents particularly, to access healthcare in a, non-judgemental way and trying to ensure their privacy and confidentiality.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Sheikha Al-Zain, you mentioned mental health and we talked earlier in the episode about specific groups that were profoundly affected. What local experiences did you have in Kuwait, that addressed mental health specifically?
Sheikha Al-Zain:
In the beginning of the pandemic, people felt, anxious again, they felt isolated. And, sometimes it just takes a village to build a network that can provide support for them.
Sheikha Al-Zain:
but because of the nature of this pandemic, the sudden nature of this pandemic and the fact that all the usual resources weren't available, at the time, there were incredible people that just stepped up from the community, just incredible, professionals, all doing their own thing. However, all sharing, just many of the values, that come with building a viable community, again, sharing the same pain points. And we all know that no stronger, there's no stronger catalyst for grassroots based, change then or support in this kind of, configuration.
We have an incredible group of people, stepping up. We had a super team, a superstar team of doctors, you being one, Doctor, Dr. Mo and, and super grateful for that.
It was an incredible team. We had mental health specialists, journalists, surgeons, behavior change specialists, social media influencers, vloggers, copywriters. We had video editors and cameramen, graphic designers, all came together
Together we got, we got super creative and super-fast. And we built it, information dissemination strategy to serve as a liaison between all official and unofficial networks in a larger community and it was a very grassroots effort. And as a result of it, I'm very happy to report that we've built, and affected quite a lot of the media messaging that came out during this time in COVID. And also, happen to launch a mental health support system, a platform-
that helped so many front liners and people living in Kuwait at the time.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan :
You know, when I worked with you on that project, what struck me about the group and, you know, you certainly did an amazing job leading that diverse group of professionals, it was very much a startup culture. And things got done very fast and I find myself reminiscing and wishing that this was, would be how it would always happen even before or after COVID, that things would move fast and we would problem-solve very fast.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
You know, that makes me think of, if both of you could share any accessible resources that are available for individuals that don't know where to start looking.
Dr. Manning:
So there's a website called, headspace.com. Which, which looks particularly at the digital mindfulness space of interventions.
There’s beyond blue which has, has information on anxiety and depression and how to manage it. And there's healthtohealth.gov.au, which also has a COVID mental well-being support, sub site. And you know, they're all, I think they're all very good resources, if anybody is interested in, looking at them.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Well, you know, I think I speak for all our listeners, when I say that this episode really has a wealth of information and it's because of both of you, as amazing guests. And I really appreciate your time. If you could leave us with some key messages, take home messages that you want people to take out of this episode, let me start with you, Sheikah Al-Zain. Any key messages you wanna wrap up with?
Sheikah Al-Zain:
Let me, it just warms my heart and gives me great hope in our shared humanity, moving forward knowing that today, youth, what is it? 1.2 billion of the world's population. They're just a generation that is active. They are a generation that is compassionate, creative, entrepreneurial, risk-taking, giving and they're super, super resilient. And, you know, I think just finding the opportunity in whatever challenge arises is a big directive. It has been for me and I try to say the same to everybody I meet, life is hard. There are many ups and downs, no matter how much we try to micromanage or speculate or prepare in effort to minimize the downs and increase the ups. By the ways, all things I'm guilt of doing, I must admit.
Sheikha Al-Zain:
But I've learned, I've learned, um, and this wasn't easy, to surf the wave, to lay again in that, in that trough between these waves when I fall. And I do fall continuously, everybody falls. But I try to make a conscious effort to fall forward. And I urge that people try that as well, especially the youth. I encourage them to breathe and always, always take time to reflect on lessons learned along the way.
for instance, one lesson I've learned is that there is always a silver lining in any crisis.
We just need to step out of the cloud to see it and pun intended here.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Very well said. Dr. Manning, some key messages, take home messages, things you don't want people to forget coming out of this episode.
Dr. Manning:
Well, to remember the three R's of routine, rituals and the rules, the new rules for maintaining your lifestyle. And I think just remember first of all, we are all in it together that everybody is suffering in their own way. But the current situation, it's nobody's fault. It's time limited and hopefully, is completely manageable. So I think we have to take that positive message home.
Dr. Manning:
And in the meantime, you may have fewer face-to-face encounters but you may have deeper relationships or, social contacts which don't depend on face-to-face all the time. And it's a way as, I think we've all experienced, of renewing some, of our social contacts. So you know, I think those are positives that we can take away from it all.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
Absolutely. And I love your three R's because the big R from today's episode is resilience.
Dr. Manning:
Yes.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
So, that's a fantastic way to end the episode. Thank you both, so, so much for joining us today. Really appreciate your time. I know you are both very busy, but I can say we've learned so much from both of you.
Dr. Manning:
Thank you very much.
Sheikha Al-Zain:
Thank you, Dr. Mo. Thank you, Dr. Manning. It was a pleasure.
Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan:
We hope this episode has shed some light on resilience building during the COVID-19 pandemic and even offered some new strategies for you to try to help increase your own resilience. These strategies could be used in any stressful life event. Remember that you are not alone and you are stronger than you may think. And the good news is that resiliency is a buildable skill. You can develop it more and more, with practice and with intention. As always, I encourage you to have an open and honest health conversation with your healthcare provider. And stay on top of any issues affecting your health or well-being. It's up to you to be your own best health advocate, no matter the issue.
I'd like to sincerely thank, Dr. Garth Manning and Sheikah Al-Zain Al-Sabah for providing their expertise and personal experience on this topic. I'm Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan, thanks for listening.
If you're looking for more information or resources about the topics covered in this or other episodes,
you can visit www.listenwellpodcast.com. I’m Dr. Mo Alsuwaidan. Thanks for listening.
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