The content of this podcast is provided for general informational purposes only and is not intended as,

nor should it be considered a substitute for professional medical advice.

This is Karen Nicholl, family nurse practitioner in for ITZY and BITCHY, a podcast,

answering health questions that you may have, but have been afraid to ask, and I am here with

our ever-faithful producer, Forest Winsle, and I have the pleasure of having the lovely and

talented Alexandra Perignon, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, and also a family nurse practitioner

here to talk with me today about people who are feeling overwhelmed, completely overwhelmed

during and following this time of COVID and as we try to add things in our lives as

some things start to open up during COVID, and we have had to add on so many things during the

COVID-19 pandemic. People are teaching at home, they're working from home, and they've kept up

all the other things they do in their life, and now we're starting to add more things on, and I

see in my practice, Alex, that people are just completely overwhelmed, and they're stressed,

and I'm seeing it in terms of their level of anxiety, and depression, and poor sleep,

and irritability, and so I just wanted to talk today about what we can do to offset some of that,

and some of those symptoms by pairing down some of our choices we make, and by figuring out

what we should think about before we say yes to things, and maybe then we can talk about

the best way to say no to some things. So I think on top of all the things that we have to do,

if you're working, we have to go to work, because we have to pay our bills, and we have to help

our children with their schoolwork, and especially if you're teaching remotely, or helping to teach

your children remotely, but there are things, little things that I think a lot of people add on that

they don't have to add on, like baking a lasagna for the church potluck. That's something you can

take off your list. You don't realize it seems like an easy yes. Yeah, I'll do that. I'll make

...