Many anxious after Hurricane Sandy

Posted on Nov 1, 2012 in Health | 0 comments

After a natural disaster, short-term emotional stress and behavioral reactions are both common and normal, U.S. experts say.

Melissa Brymer, director of Terrorism and Disaster Programs at the UCLA/Duke University National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, and Richard Heaps, a clinical psychologist and professor at Brigham Young University, said mourning loss is healthy and appropriate, CNN reports.

They suggest strategies for stress management following natural disasters include:

– People experiencing strong emotional reactions might withdraw and pull inside themselves and this hampers managing and dealing with the stress of traumatic incidents. Do not withdraw from important relationships.

– Keep in touch with people you are worried about, so you know what is happening instead of continuing to worry.

– Don’t rely too much on national TV or radio, find out what’s happening in your own area.

– Strive for a return to normalcy.

– Think about what you’re eating. Do your best to sleep enough.

– Storytelling — orally, in writing, or whatever other form it may take — can be healing.

– There is no one way of coping so honor different ways that people express themselves about the event.

– Curb watching repeated TV images of the disaster.

– Calm yourself during anxious moments via deep breathing, meditation, music, singing or praying.

Copyright 2012 by United Press International