by: Lizzy Klein
Summertime is almost over! Pool parties are fading. School (online) is back in session. Spending quality time with strangers at the crowded beach is almost gone! Hooking up on dating sites during a pandemic may loose its appeal. But hey, we still have peaceful protesting to excuse our need to gather in large crowds! We can still post our selfies and disregard social distancing guidelines and potentially carry the virus home to grandmother when we peacefully protest. We can still destroy neighborhoods that we don’t live in to demand economic police reform. An increasingly vocal number of business owners, community leaders and residents in Chicago for example, say they are tired of these protests to defund the police department. They are viewing protesters largely as outsiders unwilling to do the hands-on work they say is required to improve Black communities. And Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan just vetoed a city budget proposal that would have made significant cuts to its police department. So, keep this in mind before you protest an “injustice”. It’s an American right to protest, so be informed before you do.
The activists who were protesting the same shit before we were born were not doing it during a global pandemic. So you know the drill: mask up, hand-wash, use hand sanitizer and social distance – all of these responsible choices combined help slow the spread of the covid-19 virus.
Chill Out
Stop stressing. Your stimulus check is on the way. And even if it never arrives, relax. You got this! Living under constant stress causes the body to produce too much cortisol, the stress hormone. Over time, elevated cortisol lowers your resistance to fighting off the virus. And that leads to insomnia and higher blood pressure. Here’s an idea: instead of protesting in the hot sun and getting stressed out and dehydrated, stay home and meditate! And then your evening is open to manifest lasting change through visualization! Transcend. Did you know that 5 minutes a day of simply sitting quietly and focusing on your breath, will change your outlook on life? Meditation lowers your heart rate and blood pressure, reduces anxiety and helps you sleep.
Exercise and Community Service
If you have the stamina to protest then you can also do some kind of physical activity like walking in your own neighborhood. Exercise improves our brain’s health, helps with weight management, reduces disease and strengthens our bones. It also helps with depression! Toxins in food make us tired and leads to poor memory, erratic behavior, word confusion and headaches. And while you are out walking, smile through your mask (by using your lovely windows to the soul – the eyes) and cheerfully greet your neighbor. Volunteer. Do some community service. Offer to help an elderly person with errands. Ask how you can lend a hand. Find the silver lining in every moment and resist mental slavery. We’re all in this together.
Go Raw
Eat raw veggies and fresh fruit and stay away from processed food like frozen pizza, instant ramen and microwave popcorn. We know, processed foods are convenient and cooking our own meals every day is exhausting. But not all processed foods are bad for you: pre-chopped vegetables and canned fruits in their own juice are two examples. Some processed foods like canned fish (salmon and tuna) and varieties of low-sodium canned beans are also fine.
Take a Supplement
Staying virus-free during the pandemic also means taking a vitamin or supplement to boost immune levels. Vitamin C and Zinc are known to boost immunity. There is also a multi-vitamin that boost immunity while also helping to relieve symptoms associated with perimenopause. If you are in your late 30-s to mid 40’s, changes in hormone levels may influence neurotransmitters in the brain, causing estrogen levels to drop which leads to hot flashes that disturb sleep and create anxiety and mood swings.
Aint nobody got time for anxiety during a pandemic! So chill out, eat healthy, take a walk and wash down a vitamin with a glass of water every day. You will need your strength to vote in the Fall!
Read Everything
Stay informed on policy. Use a bipartisan approach that is not based on emotion. Read and listen to liberal and conservative podcasts with an open mind. What did we learn from the DNC? They made a case against Donald Trump and a case for Joe Biden as a descent human being. But, the democrats did not lay out a plan of action. There are a number of voters who don’t agree or even like Donald Trump and will vote for him anyway. They don’t have to be told that he’s a bad character – they already know. This is because they leave emotion out of it and look at policy: he is a President who presented his policy(s) and a strategy or plan of action to achieve them. And he did.
Learn all you can about activism, movements and the activists who helped flip the tables of woman’s disenfranchisement through the waves of feminism…and those who stood by silently. As historian Faye E. Dudden writes in her book Fighting Chance, the suffrage movement during the reconstruction period was strained due to women’s issues being intertwined with race issues. For real change, some of us need to join the political arena. If running for an office sounds interesting then check out the group Higher Heights for America. They work to improve Black women’s political representation by holding webinars to teach participants about women’s suffrage and how to build a political career. To learn more click HERE
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