It's an extremely difficult time for everyone right now. 

Thousands of people have lost their jobs, kids have suddenly had to change their routines, stop their activities and everyone has had to make some sort of an adjustment to their daily routine. 

Dr. Patrick Keelan is a local psychologist and says it's important for people to continue to use the same coping strategies for managing stress and anxiety that they normally use in their daily lives.

He says you may need to shift the way you do that but the same rules apply as far as using Problem focused strategies and Self focused strategies.

"Taking appropriate actions to keep yourself safe and prevent the virus from being contracted. Seeking out appropriate information to inform yourself those kinds of things. That's problem focused strategies. Self focused strategies to manage anxiety and stress would involve engaging in activities and strategies to give yourself a break from dwelling on the issue and lower your anxiety that way."

He says exercise and doing something for yourself is key. 

Dr. Keelan says therapy sessions can still go on thanks to video technology such as Skype, Zoom and Facetime. 

"You have all the conditions of in-person therapy present when you do video therapy. You can hear your therapist and they can hear you, you can both see each other, that's what you have in the office. So if you do it on video you have those same conditions present."

He says it's so important for parents to talk to their children and explain and give reassurance to them about what is going on. 

"Some of it can be more problematic for children because especially for the younger ones, they have a hard time keeping things in proper perspective. They might be more likely to have worries about things that are outside their control and amplify those worries because they don't get enough information about what exactly is going on."

He says it's important to try to balance the time you're spending with people in your home. 

Dr. Keelan recommends trying to simulate the strategies you used before the pandemic and use them at home.

"We want to have a certain amount of time during the day when we're around people in our families or people close to us to allow us to connect with the other person or the family members and enjoy our time together but come up with a plan together so that we can allow people to have some time apart from each other."

For more information go to Dr. Keelan's website here.