Cope with Acute Stress

It may be useful to take note of the followings to promote your psychological recovery:

Dos	Don’ts
Get adequate rest and give yourself time to process your emotions and thoughts	Use alcohol or drugs to cope
Maintain a healthy diet	Disrupt your normal eating patterns
Take breaks from things related to the incident	Overwhelm yourself with different tasks or information (e.g. from social media or the news)
Focus on something practical to manage the situation better	Do risky things
Use relaxation methods	Withdraw from pleasant activities
Spend time with others but allow yourself some private time as well	Extreme withdrawal from social contacts
Maintain your routines and keep your life normal as far as possible	Stop all your plans and work
Talk to people for support and express your emotions and needs	Engage in violent behaviours or conflicts

If you would like to have further emotional support, or if the stress responses persist and become difficult to manage, you can talk to our counsellors at CoPE. Hotlines operated by organisations in the community are also available.