How to Stay Sane in Lockdown 2020
A curated list of mental health and wellness tips from a psychologist.
Living through COVID has provided many people with challenges that they are not necessarily equipped to deal with. Isolation is not a safe space.
Stick to a Routine
Make sure you wake up and go to sleep at the same time each day. Work out a schedule that fits your needs and ensure that it includes some time focussed on self care.
I don’t know about you, but COVID has posed loads of issues for me with regards to sleep. It seems that if there is no reason to get up, then it’s too easy to lay in and fixate on your social feed! This lack of purpose feeds the depression and anxiety. We must find a reason to get up and continue.
Dress for the Social Life you want, Not the social life you have!
Goodness knows we miss a social life…
Get up and have a shower and dress in comfortable clothes, brush your teeth. Take some time to have a bath or give yourself a facial. Put on some bright colours as it’s amazing how we dress impacts our mood.
Get out at least once per day
Leave the house for at least 30 minutes. Take a walk up to the coffee shop and grab a takeaway if you can. Walk around the block. If you are concerned about contact, go early in the morning or later at night prior to curfew if that is relevant to you. Try walking on streets that have less foot traffic and avoid places where people generally congregate. This can be a challenge in the city. If you are high risk or living with those who are high risk, open the windows and blast the fan. It is amazing how much fresh air can do for the spirit.
Find some time to move each day
At least 30 minutes of exercise or movement each day is super important. If you don’t feel like going outside, there are loads of exercise and yoga video’s online which are free and you can do it in the comfort of your own home in your daggy tracksuit. Alternatively, pop on some music and have a dance party!
Reach out to others
Spend 30 minutes, at least once a day, connect with someone else. You can use Facetime, Skype, WhatsApp, make a phone call, texting. Connect with other people to seek and provide support. Don’t forget to do this for your children as well. Set up virtual playdates with friends daily. Your kids miss their friends too!
Stay hydrated and eat well
This one may seem obvious but stress and eating often don’t mix well and we find ourselves over-indulging, forgetting to eat and avoiding food. Drink plenty of water, east some good and nutritious foods, and challenge yourself to learn how to cook something new.
Develop a self-care toolkit
This can look different for everyone. A lot of successful self-care strategies involve a sensory component. Think about the seven senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell, vestibular (movement) and proprioceptive (comforting pressure). An idea for each: a soft blanket or stuffed animal, a hot chocolate, photo’s of vacations, comforting music, lavender or eucalyptus oil, a small swing or rocking chair, a weighted blanket.
A journal, an inspirational book, or a mandala colouring book is wonderful, bubbles to blow or blowing watercolour on paper through a straw are visually appealing as well as work on controlled breath. Mint gum, Listerine strips, ginger ale, frozen starburst, ice packs and cold are also good for anxiety regulation. For children, it is great to help them create a self-regulation comfort box (often a shoe-box or bin they can decorate) that they can use on the ready for first-aid when overwhelmed.
Spend extra time playing with children
Children will rarely communicate how they are feeling but will often make a bid for attention and communication through play. Don’t be surprised to see therapeutic themes of illness, doctor visits and isolation play through. Understand that play is cathartic and helpful for children - this is how they process their world and problem solve, and there’s a lot they are seeing and experiencing in the now.
Give everyone the benefit of the doubt
And a wide berth! A lot of cooped up time can bring out the worst in everyone. Each person will have moments when they will not be at their best. it is important to move with grace through blowups, to not show up to every argument you are invited to and to not hold grudges and continue disagreements. Everyone is doing the best they can to make it through this.
Everyone Find their own retreat space
Space is at a premium, particularly with city living. It is important that people think through their own separate space for work and for relaxation. For children, help them identify a place where they can go to retreat when stressed. You can make this place cozy by using blankets, pillows, cushions, scarves, beanbags, tents and forts. It is good to know that even when we are on top of each other, we have our own special place to go to be alone.
Expect behavioural issues and respond gently
We are all struggling with disruption in routing, none more than children, who rely on routines constructed by others to make them feel safe and to now what comes next. Expect increased anxiety, worries, fear, nightmares, difficulty separating or sleeping, testing limits and meltdowns. Do not introduce major behavioural plans or consequences at this time. Hold stable and focus on emotional connection.
Focus on safety and attachment
We are going to be living for a bit with the unprecedented demand of meeting all work deadlines, homeschooling children, running a sterile household and making a whole lot of entertainment in confinement. We can get wrapped up in meeting expectations in all domains, but we must remember that these are scary and unpredictable times for children. Focus on strengthening the connection through time spent following their lead, through physical touch, through play, through therapeutic book and via verbal reassurances that you will be there for them during this time.
Lower expectations and practice radical self-acceptance
We are doing too many things in this moment under fear and stress. This does not make a formula for excellence. Instead, give yourself what psychologists call radical self-acceptance. Accepting everything about yourself, your current situation and your life without question, blame or pushback. You cannot fail at this-there is no roadmap , no precedent for this, and we are all truly doing the best we can in an impossible situation.
Limit social media and covid conversation
One can find tons of information on COVID-19 to consume and it changes minute to minute. The information is often sensationalised, negatively skewed and alarmist. Find a few trusted sources that you can check in with consistency, limit it to a few times a day and set a time limit for yourself on how much you consume. Use 30 minutes a day 2-3 time per day as a guide. Keep news and alarming conversations our of earshot from children - they see and hear everything and can become very frightened by what they hear.
Notice the good in the world - the helpers.
There is a lot of scary, negative and overwhelming information to take in regarding this pandemic. There are also a ton of stories of people sacrificing, donating and supporting one another in miraculous ways. it is important to counter-balance the heavy information with the helpful information.
Help others
Find ways, big and small to give back to others. Support restaurants, offer to grocery shop, check in with elderly neighbours, write psychological wellness tips for others.
Find something you can control and control the heck out of it
In moments of big uncertainty and overwhelm, control your little corner of the world. Organise your bookshelf, purge your closet, put together that furniture, group your toys. It helps to anchor and ground us when the bigger things are chaotic.
Find a long-term project to dive into
Now is the time to learn how to play the keyboard, put together a huge jigsaw puzzle, start a 15 hour game of Risk, paint a picture, read the Harry Potter series, binge watch and 8 season show, crochet a blanket, solve a Rubic’s cube, or develop a new town in Animal Crossing. Find something that will keep you busy, distracted and engaged to take breaks from what is going on in the outside world.
Engage in repetitive movement and left-right movements
Research has shown that repetitive movement activities like knitting, colouring, painting, clay sculpting, jump rope especially left-right movement ie running, drumming skating hopping can be effective at self soothing and maintaining self regulation in moments of distress.
Find and expressive art and go for it
Our emotional brain is very receptive to the creative arts and it is a direct portal for release of feeling. Find something that is creative, sculpting, drawing, dancing, music, singing, playing and give it your all. See how relieved you can feel. It is a very effective way of helping kids to emote and communicate as well.
Find lightness and humour each day
There is a lot to be worried about and with good reason. Counterbalance this heaviness with something funny each day. Look up cat or dog video’s on You Tube, watch a comedy show on Netflix, a funny movie. We all need a little comedic relief in our day, every day.
Reach out for help
If you have a therapist or psychiatrist, they are available to you even at a distance. Keep up your medications and your therapy sessions the best you can. If you are having difficulty coping, seek help for the first time. There are mental health people on the ready to help you through this crisis. Your children’s teachers and related service providers will do anything within their power to help, especially for those parents tasked with the difficult task of being a whole treatment team to their child with special challenges. Seek support groups of fellow home schoolers, parents, and neighbours to feel connected. There is help and support out there, any time of the day - although we are physically distant, we can always connect virtually.
“Chunk” your quarantine, take it moment by moment
We have no road map for this. We don’t know what this will look like in 1 day, 1 week or 1 month from now. Often, when I work with patients who are anxiety around overwhelming issues, i suggest that they engage in a strategy called “chunking” - focusing on whatever bite-sized piece of a challenge that feels manageable. Whether that be 5 minutes, a day or a week at a time - find what feels doable for you. and set a time stamp for how far ahead in the future you will let yourself worry. Take each chunk one at a time, and move through stress in pieces.
Remind yourself daily that this is temporary
It seems in the midst of this quarantine that it will never end. it is terrifying to think of the road stretching ahead of us. Please take time to remind yourself that although this is very scary and difficult, and will go on for an undetermined amount of time, it is a season of life and it will pass. We will return to feeling free, safe, busy and connected in the days ahead.
Find theLesson
This whole crisis can seem sad, senseless and at times avoidable. When psychologists work with trauma, a key feature to helping someone work through said trauma is to help them find their agency, the potential positive outcomes they can effect, the meaning and construction that can come out of destruction. What can each of us learn here, in big and small ways from this crisis? what needs to change in ourselves, our homes, our communities, our nation and our world?
Credit to Peter Antonenko, psychologist.