MAALL 2020: Shift Happens: Stress Management

Emergency Contacts

• 911 - Get immediate assistance from the police, the fire department or an ambulance.
• Crisis Text Line: Text HELLO to 741741 and get a response from a counselor
• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Toll-free number 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255)
• National Domestic Violence Hotline: Call 1-800-799-7233 and TTY 1-800-787-3224

Other National Resources

• Disaster Distress Helpline: Call 1-800-985-5990 or text TalkWithUs to 66746
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Find Treatment

What else?

Investigate other options you may have, such as an employee resource program, or counseling coverage through your health insurance, so you are aware of your options.

Listen to your body. An increased heart rate, sweating, tense muscles, or clenched jaw may all indicate you are feeling stressed. Note what cues your body offers, so you can take steps to address the stressor. It might help to identify whether you tend to have an overexcited or underexcited stress response.

Overexcited stress response – If you tend to become angry, agitated, overly emotional, or keyed up under stress, you will respond best to stress relief activities that quiet you down.

Underexcited stress response – If you tend to become depressed, withdrawn, or spaced out under stress, you will respond best to stress relief activities that are stimulating and energizing.

Read more about these responses and quick stress relief tips.

From CDC Employees: How to Cope with Job Stress and Build Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic

• Feeling irritation, anger, or in denial
• Feeling uncertain, nervous, or anxious
• Lacking motivation
• Feeling tired, overwhelmed, or burned out
• Feeling sad or depressed
• Having trouble sleeping
• Having trouble concentrating

From the Crisis Text Line, part 3 of the 10 part series Notes on Coronavirus: How is America Feeling?

America is eating our feelings.

How are you feeling right now? If you are feeling troubled, please consider reaching out to others for help (in an emergency, call 911 or use other emergency contacts).

If you're feeling pretty good, take the opportunity to consider ways you can maintain your mental health. Develop a list of actions that help you feel your best. Find ways to incorporate these into your daily life. Different activities work for different people, but the following ideas might help inspire you as you develop your list:

Studies demonstrate that cultivating gratitude can reduce stress and improve happiness. Martin Seligman, founder of positive psychology, notes one simple exercise to start: Every night write down three things that went well today and why they went well.

A few other mindfulness and meditation resources

The Greater Good Science Center (U. Cal Berkeley) "studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society." The following are among the links of potential interest on their site:

The University of Michigan notes, "What we say to ourselves radically affects the quality of our lives, and our ability to do things effectively. You can't change the fact that highly stressful events happen, but you can change how you interpret and respond to these events."

They continue with advice on how you can practice more positive self-talk to help you manage stress:

• Reassure yourself ("I can handle this")
• Don't over-generalize ("That was rough, but it’s over now." instead of "Life sucks, it’s always this way.")
• Give yourself credit for successes ("I’m really getting the hang of this." not "Well at least something went right, this time.)
• Use milder wording to neutralize your experience. ("I don’t like traffic; I’m so annoyed" versus "I hate traffic! It makes me so angry!")
• Change negative to neutral or positive. When you find yourself mentally complaining, see if you can come up with a neutral or positive interpretation of events. For example, having your plans cancelled at the last minute can be seen as a negative, but what you do with your newly-freed schedule can be what you make of it.
• Change statements to questions: Self-limiting statements like "I can’t handle this!" or "This is impossible!" are particularly damaging because they increase your stress and they stop you from searching for solutions. Instead, try a question: "How can I handle this?" or "How is this possible?”"

Pick-Me Ups

Consider easy or routine ways to lift your spirits. Find a way to integrate them into your everyday life. For instance, some people suggest creating a personal mantra; can you use that as the basis of a password you have to type multiple times a day?

What (Mostly) Worked for Us

Drake Law School Library

• Virtual trivia. We included faculty, staff, students, and alumni. We received lots of good feedback from participants.
• Virtual white board for staff. This was a bust. We have a white board in the library reserve room where we will post questions (what was your first car, e.g.) or play asynchronous hangman. In the physical world, it has seen some degree of success. Karen tried to move it to Teams when we first started working remotely, and it did not capture people's attention the same way.

Littler Law Library

• Played Work from Home Bingo
• Created a National Library Week Book Bracket
• Pictured Work From Home offices/command centers in newsletter -- with pets and kids!
• Made meetings more fun.
  • Began them with light-hearted questions, like asking people to share their favorite Quarenread/Quarenbinge or tell everyone something they’ve never done before.
  • Picked a meeting theme that people could choose to dress up for
  • Staff could use funny WebEx profile pics (Pat Mahomes, Bea Arthur, Chewbacca)
• Encouraged people to take paid time off (and not work during it)!

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Schmid Law Library

The library celebrated National Library Week in a big way.

• We had daily online quizzes using Google forms to distribute the quizzes. Sandy used a random number generator to pick the winner. Daily winners won e-gift cards: $20 gift card from local bookstore (donated by the library), $10 Amazon gift card (donated by our Lexis rep); $10 Starbucks gift card donated by our Westlaw rep. The first two quizzes were about the library. The third quiz was “name that item” with some old library items. The fourth quiz was vote for your favorite COVID-19 parody.
• We hosted a haiku competition. (April is also National Poetry month.) Faculty, staff and students were invited to submit a haiku, and all submissions were posted to the web. The last day of NLW, the law school community voted on their favorite haiku that was submitted during the week.

• Early on in April or May, for morale, library director Richard Leiter bought Door Dash gift cards for everyone on the staff and we had lunch together. It was fun to meet and eat together via Zoom.

University of South Dakota Law Library

• Staff shared pet photos on an email chain
• Sarah brought in treats when they were first back to work.
• The library had a big National Library Week celebration. They hosted a virtual trivia night, created study playlists, and celebrated Throwback Thursday to help connect the library with students and as a diversion to stress.
• The library provided virtual care packages to student workers before finals and sent ecards to those who were graduating.

Tips From Participants

From Gail Wechsler:

Government Law Libraries SIS has a weekly zoom call check in to go over best practices, commiserate, just connect. If anyone is not on the list and wants to be in on those calls let me know.

From Susan Boland:
Reaching out to support employees is fantastic, but if you are communicating in an unusual way, perhaps give people a heads-up first. The Dean was trying to do a good thing and reach out to everyone by calling them, but she didn't schedule it. I received a very unexpected cell phone call from the Dean and almost had a heart attack!

Other Resources