Resilience & Healthy Routine
Coping with emergencies, emotional support, and wartime daily routine
Coping with emergencies, emotional support, and wartime daily routine
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Emotional and Mental Support
If either you or anyone in your family experiences difficulties or stress in response to the war, we have gathered here for you the list of emotional support hotlines that… -
Emotional First Aid in Case of Emergency
Guidelines for emotional first aid in stressful situations, and how to relieve someone's stress using the guidelines of the MAASEH method: commitment, encouragement, asking questions and structuring. -
Traumatic Stress Responses and Coping Strategies
This information will guide you on how to help yourself grow stronger and resume normal functioning or how assist family members who have been exposed to the traumatic events or… -
Post War and Disaster Traumatic Stress
Disasters can have far-reaching and long-lasting consequences for their victims. We have compiled information on a variety of beneficial intervention strategies that can assist people in recovering from stressful and… -
Parental Guidance on Managing Child Traumatic Stress
Anxiety has different manifestations among children of different age groups and between children of the same age group. All the information and recommendations that parents need for coping with anxiety… -
Helping Children Understand Tragic Events
A couple of tips that will help you if you need to talk to your children about difficult subjects. -
Traumatic Stress While Pregnant or Breastfeeding
All the information for women who are coping with stress and trauma while they are pregnant or breastfeeding. Tips for coping with stress, emotional support hotlines and more. -
Healthy Nutrition in Emergency States
Healthy nutrition is important and helps reinforcing our physical and mental resilience. We have gathered here all the information, hotlines and phone numbers on the subject of nutritional counseling and… -
Keeping Children and Adults Busy
Keeping busy and active during crisis times carries therapeutic powers. It helps self-regulation of powerful emotions, relieve tensions and maintain resilience. We have gathered here some examples for suitable activities. -
Information Security and Cyber Security
Israel is currently facing many cyber threats to its citizens, organizations, and companies. These threats come in various forms, including network hacking attempts, phishing scams, fraud, and more. -
Substance Abuse
Stressful and emergency situation may increase abuse of such substances as drugs and alcohol. You should avoid abusing these substances to avoid addiction and you should seek professional help or…
Keeping Children and Adults Busy
Continuing with our occupations and staying resilient
We are worried about our children, our old parents and other loved ones who are incapable of taking care of themselves. However, we should not forget to take care of ourselves too. In times of crisis, when we are nervous and restless, occupations and activities available in our immediate surroundings carry therapeutic powers: they help us regulate our feelings, ease our tension and stay resilient.
Here are a few examples:
Self-regulating occupations
Inwards
- Breathe! Inhale slowly, counting down to 10, and exhale the air out slowly.
- Find some smells, sounds and tastes that calm us and make us happy.
- Find some time to connect with ourselves, right here, right now, using yoga, mindfulness or meditation.
Outwards
- Share our thoughts and feelings with others, or write them down.
- Clear some time for volunteering, either alone or with our family.
- Stay in touch with family and friends. Meet them in person or use digital means to stay in contact.
- Ask the neighbors how they are doing. Give a helping hand to those around us.
Routine occupations
Indoors
- Continue our self-grooming routine: nutritious food, adequate fluid intake, showers, and wearing clean clothes.
- Clear some time for creative occupations, clean and arrange those corners of the house that we have not gotten to in a long time.
- Consume relaxing or interesting content like books, movies, series or music, either on our own or with others.
Outdoors
- Go out for walks.
- Engage in other forms of physical activity, either on our own or with others.
- Go out to visit others or to run errands close to home, in accordance with the guidelines of the Home Front Command.
It is important to keep busy, especially children, especially during emergency
Occupations have therapeutic powers that help build resilience. They help set goals, provide meaning and develop a sense of belonging. With just a little planning, you can integrate resilience-building occupations into your daily routine, using the available means at your home. Here are some examples:
- A quiet and cozy corner. Prepare a quiet and cozy corner where the children will enjoy playing and relaxing. Put some beanbags, comfortable blankets, a ball tent; some toys that they can wrap their mouths around like blowers, straws, balloons and bubble blowers (inhaling and exhaling are very helpful in self-regulation and relaxation).
- Games revolving around food. Cook together and be creative about it. Pay attention to all of the senses. Learn about measurements and weights. Set the table. Sort the dishes and utensils. Learn shapes and geometry by folding napkins into origami folds.
- Pretend and make-believe games. Bring out the costume trunk. Make-believe games help processing and expressing feelings and experiences. Pretend to be superheroes, TV characters, animals or any other character that your children like.
- Play together and apart. Choose games that all players want to win. Board games, card games, jigsaw puzzles, word games, task games, painting with various colors and substances on different surfaces.
- Motion games. Games that involve motion secret hormones, improve the mood and ease feelings of distress. Try some finger or hand games, some dancing, "the floor is lava", "airplane" and more.
- Roles at home. Assign chores to your children. Roles and responsibilities help children feel empowered and competent. Let the children feed the pets, clear out the dishwasher, fold the laundry, take out the trash, sort boxes for the recycle bins.
- Social life, in accordance with the guidelines of the Home Front Command. Encourage the children to return to their various afterschool programs and youth movements, whether in-person or via Zoom, and to stay in touch with family and friends over the phone, by video calls or by text messages.
- Before bed: play "roll the burrito" with your child by wrapping them tightly in their blanket, exerting pleasant pressure on them. This pressure is pleasant and helps the child self-regulate, relax and fall asleep.
Staying active on Efsharibbari (the Ministry of Health's website on active and healthy living)