How to Cope After a Disaster
Disaster Preparedness handbook (Page 50)
Tips:
1. Set your priorities.
2. Get enough rest.
3. Eat well and drink plenty of clean water.
4. Acknowledge your feelings.
5. Focus on your strengths and abilities.
6. Talk to your friends or someone about your feelings, such as your anger, sorrow and other emotions – Even though it’s difficult.
7. Accept help from friends, community programs (such as training and seminars) and resources that are Healthy.
8. Understand that everyone has different needs and different phase and ways of coping.
9. Maintain a normal family daily routine.
10. Spend time with family and friends.
11. If an adult/child experiences signs of disaster related stress, it would be better to talk or seek professional help.
Help Children to cope
1. Hug and touch your children.
2. Encourage children and adolescents to share their thoughts and feelings about the incident.
3. If a child has difficulty expressing his/her thoughts and feelings, allow the child to draw a picture or tell a story of what happened.
4. Spend extra time with your children.
5. Listen to what your child is saying.
6. When answering their questions make it simple without elaboration.
7. Re-establish your family daily routine for work, school, play, meals, and rest.
8. Involve your children by giving them specific chores to help them feel they are helping our family and community to recover.
9. Praise and recognize their efforts.
10. Try to understand what is causing child’s anxieties and fear.
Signs of disaster-related stress
1. Difficulty sleeping (insomnia), concentrating and maintaining a balance view of life.
2. Feeling of frustration, depression, sadness, and hopelessness.
3. Fear of crowd, strangers, or being alone.
4. Overwhelming guilt and self-doubt.
5. Mood-swing.
6. Headaches/stomach problem.
7. Increased consumption of drugs/alcohol.
8. Colds and flu-like symptoms.
9. Disorientation or confusion.
10. Tunnels vision/muffled hearing.
11. Difficulty communicating his/her thoughts.
12. Poor working performance.
13. Short attention span.
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