LAST Friday, the DepEd Regional Office III conducted a free Facebook virtual health forum titled "Mental Health Care for DepEd RO III Workforce" and invited a very credible and able speaker in the person of Dr. Ruby Lynda Reyes, Disaster Risk Reduction and Management in Health Manager of the Mariveles Mental Wellness and General Hospital. The said forum was very timely indeed as most of us are facing difficult circumstances in this time of the Covid-19 3rd wave.
I would like to share with you the important highlights of the lecture o well-being and personal resilience of Dr. Rubylyn Reyes, which are the following points:
Well-being is defined as a state of being happy, comfortable, healthy, and generally well.
According to Dr. Reyes, it also includes "having good mental health, high life satisfaction, a sense of meaning or purpose, and ability to manage stress.
Based on the Well-being Framework taken from the Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Service (MHPSS) Training Manual, well-being consists of seven aspects: biological, material, mental, emotional, social, cultural, and spiritual.
Meanwhile, resilience is defined as the ability to recover or regain readily our normal level of functioning or particular state.
Dr. Reyes enumerated the factors that promote resilience such as belonging to a caring family, maintaining traditions and cultures, and having a strong belief or political ideology.
Personal resilience consists of 4 dimensions: internal and personal strengths; external support and resources; social, interpersonal skills and knowledge; willingness, capacity, commitment to matters, affecting the person.
Here are the suggested ways to cope with stress:
Breathe. Listen to Music. Take a Quick walk. Find the Sun. Give yourself a hand massage. Squeeze a stress ball. Progressive Relaxation. Get organized. Eat dark chocolate. Chew gum. Meditate. Cuddle with a pet. Sip green tea. Laugh. Drip cold water on your wrists. Create a Zen Zone. Journaling. Slurp some honey. Talk to a friend. Be creative. Try a new hobby. Watch a movie/TV series.
We need to take care of ourselves physically. We must get enough sleep, eat well and healthy, and exercise regularly.
Social self-care includes maintaining connections with people and reaching out to someone every day.
"You can also think of self-care as taking care of yourself so you can better take care of others."
Having a good mental health state is quite significant nowadays as families face the challenges brought by the Covid-19 surge caused by the Omicron variant. With a strong state of mind, anything can be dealt with properly and resiliently.