Free advice to help relieve stress in this tough time! Perhaps the most important one: Practice Trump distancing.
Like you, Iâve been watching tons of news coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in hopes of relieving my anxiety. Not surprisingly, it hasnât helped. Therefore, as a public service, Iâm offering you the following advice:
- Reduce your TV news viewing to thirty minutes a day. Thatâs all you need to keep up to date. Too much news tends to increase your anxiety level exponentially.
- As a corollary, try to keep Fox News viewing to a bare minimum. It appears to be a source of accurate reporting but actually tends to result in serious levels of misinformation and potential harm.
- Practice Trump distancing. As best you can, avoid watching or listening to any pandemic-related pronouncements by the President. If you find you have overdone it, try scrubbing any resulting infection with a healthy dose of Dr. Fauci.
- Only watch White House press conferences as models of what not to do in a pandemic. In other words, do not stand closer than two meters and avoid all handshaking, face touching and lectern contact.
- Wash your hands frequently with soap and water. Moreover, if excessive Trump exposure causes an outbreak of profanity, try washing your mouth out with soap, too.
- Before taking any new medications as a pandemic prophylaxis, ensure you have the OK from a qualified MD. Remember that the MD after Donald Trumpâs name stands for âmad dictatorâ not âmedical doctor.â
- Do not base your Easter celebration and church-going plans on the Presidentâs advice. Probably best to stay home and binge on chocolate bunnies.
- If you and your family are housebound, maybe nowâs the time to haul out those old standbys like Monopoly, Risk and Clue. And for those who donât have a stockpile of board games, why not try your hand at Fantasy Pandemic? Each player gets to pick six countries and then you compete by tracking each teamâs daily increase of COVID-19 cases.
- Thanks to the Internet and social media, youâre free to set up your own lottery. For example, players can bet on any number of things including the date for the stock market to return to its previous high, Trumpâs Electoral College total in November and even the date a coronavirus vaccine is announced.
- Make friends with a survivalist. Who knows? If things get really bad, he may be willing to share some of his water, canned goods and ammunition.
- Donât forget to exercise. Itâs often difficult to motivate yourself to work out when youâre feeling isolated and alone. Try taping pictures of Donald Trump to a boxing bag, a step or the bottom of your running shoes. That should give you the extra incentive you might be lacking.
- Count to ten slowly. If that doesnât work, repeat or maybe try counting to twenty. As a last resort, you can always try counting backwards from 100 in binary or hexadecimal.
- Eat well-balanced meals and restrict your alcohol intake. Hereâs a handy rule of thumb that should help: limit yourself to one beer or one glass of wine for every cheeseburger consumed.
- Welcome humor. For example, picture anti-vaxxers fighting to get a COVID-19 vaccine or a reluctant Donald Trump being perp walked out of the White House next January.
Latest posts by David Martin (see all)
- The Proud Boys’ Letter to President Trump - January 8, 2021
- Betting on Trump - January 6, 2021
- Melania Trump’s Christmas Letter - December 23, 2020