When European countries are gradually back to their normal life thanks to vaccination, Asian countries including Vietnam are facing new waves of the pandemic. With the same situations and devastation, as the business leaders, you are constantly being tested. During this global pandemic, the hardened battle is even more challenging.

In terms of social-related impacts, the keywords “burned out”, “stress”, and “mental health” are the most mentioned during the Covid-19 pandemic. Researchers have identified stress as the main factor contributing to increasing the risk of having a heart attack by 40%, stroke by 50%, and especially 60% of other illnesses, therefore, indicating the significance of reducing stress is well-known as the most important treatment for improving the mental and physical health.

Certainly, it is nearly impossible at this moment to take a day off since the majority of companies are preparing for the post-COVID scenario. However, here are a few best practices and life hacks that require only 5 minutes of your time daily which cross-industry business leaders had shared to manage through this healthcare crisis.

It is demonstrated that to be not only a stress-reducing method but also encouraging people to be more optimistic and motivated, which directly attenuates “Burnout”. Here are some books that highly recommend how to navigate through the pandemic and support mental health:

Over the past few years, meditation has been adopted as one of the tools to enhance the quality of workers by relieving stress in the majority of businesses. However, it became even more popular daily since brain-wave coherence has been implemented to assess the efficiency of different meditation programs. Accordingly, science has participated by helping individuals to choose their most appropriate meditation programs by testing the coherence of mind, body, and brain to optimize the relief of stress. Below are the most common meditation applications that are available for you to use with the appropriate budget identified:

It’s easy to say but not in this difficult period, you will forget to do this. If you’re seriously stressed at the moment, during the point where you feel actual panic, focused breathing can help. According to clinical psychologist Angela K. Kenzslowe, when we breathe deeply, we can counteract the natural physical stress response and help our body and brain to realize there is no physical danger and we can relax. She also offers a simple remedy: Take two or three deep breaths (from your diaphragm, not your chest) for a very slow count to four. (That’s four seconds on the in-breath, four more on the out-breath)

Apart from these, there exist some other activities consisting of breathing exercises, fitness, sports, … that you can also implement to improve physical health and mental health at the same time. Positively, history has taught us that the greatest challenges similar to today’s Coronavirus often have a silver lining: the emergence of leaders and heroes. Let’s consider this an opportunity for many of us to recalibrate and rethink our future and prepare for what might come.