If the Pandemic is Messing with Your Productivity, You’re Not Alone.
The widescale effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are starting to be felt in the most private corners of homes. How can you combat pandemic-related stress and what should you do to feel like you’re taking charge of your life again?
In January, the International Labour Organization (ILO) published a report stating that at least 8.8% of global working hours were lost in 2020. That’s equivalent to 255 million full-time jobs.
The productivity losses were so great that it’s estimated to be four times greater than during the global financial crisis in 2009.
How did the pandemic contribute to this? Why is it affecting worker productivity?
Explaining the Stress Caused by the Pandemic
During the height of the pandemic, many governments imposed mobility restrictions to prevent the transmission of the virus. Measures such as social distancing contributed to feelings of isolation and loneliness, increasing stress and anxiety.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explained that pandemic-related stress can cause the following:
- Feelings of fear, anger, sadness, worry, numbness, or frustration
- Changes in appetite, energy, desires, and interests
- Difficulty concentrating and making decisions
- Difficulty sleeping or nightmares
- Physical reactions, such as headaches, body pains, stomach problems, and skin rashes
- Worsening of chronic health problems
- Worsening of mental health conditions
- Increased use of tobacco, alcohol, and other substances
All of these can affect worker productivity. In fact, it can also lead to loss of income. The ILO report, as mentioned earlier, estimated that the global income losses in 2020 were at least US$3.7 trillion.
And while many countries’ conditions have significantly improved, many workers across the globe still suffer from feelings of isolation and loneliness — feeling no signs of improvement within their immediate surroundings.
If you’re one of these people, what can you do to improve your productivity and feel like you’re taking charge of your life again?
Ways to Improve Productivity During the Pandemic
- Take charge of your body
They say that the mind influences the body — that your body responds to the way you think, feel, and act. But the converse is true as well.
Can power posing for a few minutes really change your life in meaningful ways?
[It’s] possible that when you pretend to be powerful, you are more likely to actually feel powerful.
Amy Cuddy posited that our bodies can change our minds — what we think, feel, and consequently, do.
So we know that our minds change our bodies, but is it also true that our bodies change our minds? And when I say minds, in the case of the powerful,
what am I talking about?So I’m talking about thoughts and feelings
and the sort of physiological things that make up our thoughts and feelings,
and in my case, that’s hormones.
So taking control of our bodies can help us deal with the stress and anxiety that our minds are constantly dealing with. And among the ways we can do this is to eat healthy, exercise, get adequate sleep and rest, and avoid excessive use of alcohol, tobacco, and substances.
2. Take a break from listening to the news.
It’s important to stay informed during uncertain times. But sometimes it can all get overwhelming.
Taking a break from listening to stories — especially those that involve death and disaster — can help your mind recuperate and look at the silver linings.
Consider limiting social media usage. And use the extra idle time to…
3. Learn new skills
There are so many ways to learn new skills. Aside from enrolling in free online courses, you can also take the time to learn how to paint, dance, or sing, and do things that you may or may not be passionate about.
Remember that Isaac Newton, during a pandemic, used his social distancing time to discover calculus and gravity.
Of course, new skills will be needed and appreciated after the pandemic (especially in areas of artificial intelligence, big data, the Internet of Things, virtual and augmented reality, and robotics) so you can take the time to add your skills to guarantee a secure future, post-pandemic.
4. Talk to people
And when messaging them won’t feel enough, talk to them over the phone.
Hearing a friendly, familiar voice naturally helps us feel more connected and the power of a conversation can bridge distances widened by the pandemic.
Take the time to get to know people more. And if you can, help others deal with the stress.
5. Make friends all over the world
Experts argue that talking to strangers (and all other impromptu contacts) help keep us happy.
Mario Luis Small, Harvard’s Grafstein Family Professor of Sociology, said:
“These ties are critical to our well-being because they end up giving us the opportunity to vent, confide, brainstorm, and discuss things that we think are important.”
So talk to strangers from around the world. Video chat apps that help you talk to strangers such as Badoo, Telegram, Skout, Omegle, and Chatroulette, among others, can help you connect to and make friends with people from different countries.
There are so many things we can’t control these days. But there are also so many things we can do to cope up. Remember to stay healthy. Stay connected. Just hang in there, bud.
