May 5, 2020
A New Social Distance - Tuesday Health & Wellness Tidbit - from Your (Rural) Stress Transdisciplinary Team
If you have been sheltering in place with family you may be in need of a little separation from those folks, but the reality is that we need each other. We need physical contact. It is a way we communicate shared meaning, interact with the world around us, and it is required for normal childhood development. Determining the healthy way forward, yet maintaining healthy physical contact will take intentional thought and some practice! My concern is that we will have a knee jerk reaction driven by anxiety and unnecessarily reduce touch resulting in additional feelings of isolation. Conversely, the CDC says that going forward we will need to be aware of social space that reduces the risk of contracting this or any other infection.
Here are a few suggestions for the future:
- Wash your hands often
- Shop by looking, not by touching
- Fist bump instead of shaking hands with random folks.
- If you develop flu like symptoms self-isolate (early)
- Cover your cough
- Maintain social distance with people you don’t know
- Be extra careful with individuals with underlying medical conditions and the elderly
- Be considerate and use common sense
- Get a pet if you are single (be careful about scratching family members behind the ears)
- Wash your hands often
Remember, we do need touch but let’s be wise in how we do it. Hug your kids often, then wash your hands!