How can we maintain our mental health if we have to self isolate for an extended period of time?

Here are some ideas to help. These are suggestions for those feeling healthy and who are not showing symptoms, you must do what feels right for you and follow NHS and Government advice.

Routine

Maintain a regular routine as best you can. Write out a schedule for the day that breaks up the day between tasks and pleasurable activities. Avoid the temptation to stay up late and then sleep in in the morning as this will cause your body clock to drift over time and you may find it harder to get to sleep at a regular time and before you know it you are nocturnal. Opening blinds and curtains to let in as much natural light as possible will not only help you feel better but will also help regulate your body clock.  A regular routine can help maintain mental health by creating a sense of stability and normality.

Keeping Up Appearances 

Shower and wash as usual and dress as if you were going out. This is similar to maintaining a routine. It helps us to feel better and ready to face the day.  It also allows us to feel like we are taking care of ourselves, and helps us prepare for anything we may need or want to achieve. 

Also keep your living space neat and tidy. This not only gives us something to do, but we often feel much more relaxed when the space around us is organised and clean. 

What to do with Your day?

If you are able to work from home, great, continue doing this.

If you are not able to work from home you may find yourself with a lot more free time than usual and you will need to find a things to do to fill this time.

Activities that help our mood can be broken into different categories, such as Active or Passive, and Pleasurable/Fun or Mastery, Achievement.

Active in this case means things that require us to do something, such as writing, reading, exercising, cooking, cleaning and playing games.

Passive means things that don’t require our input, such as watching movies and  listening to music.

Pleasurable/Fun are simply things we enjoy doing.

Mastery includes things that improve our knowledge and skills and can include reading, studying, creating art etc.

Achievement is similar to Mastery but also includes things that may not necessarily improve our skills, such as washing the dishes and vacuuming the floor.

Of course some things will fall into more than one of these categories and will be unique to each individual.

It is a good idea to have a balance of different things throughout the day. Avoid only doing Passive/Pleasurable things. It may be easy to just stream movies and boxsets all day but the problem with this is that through repetition the pleasure diminishes and through passivity we can become demotivated.

Add some Active, Mastery and achievement tasks to your daily routine, try to have more of these than passive items and save these passive items for later in the day.

We are fortunate that we live in an age of unlimited online resources. There are many online learning platforms and apps; you could take up a course in something you are interested in or perhaps learn a new language.

The main idea is to break up your day into different things.

For example, if I find I have to isolate I will learn to type. I do a lot of writing (such as this very article) and learning to touch type would be very useful for me. I will do this for an hour or two a day. 

Exercise

Exercise is incredibly important in maintaining mental health.

If you can go outdoors (please follow Government/NHS advice), take a walk once a day, if there is a park or nature nearby stroll there as experiencing nature has a calming effect and helps ground us.

Indoors create an exercise routine for yourself. There are numerous yoga and fitness videos online that can be used without the need for special equipment.  

Make exercise part of your daily routine.

Isolation and Loneliness 

Being isolated can make us feel, well… isolated and lonely.

Reach out to friends and family and arrange a regular time to call by phone or video chat. Actually call rather than just text. Texting is great but actually calling helps us to better connect and feel more in touch with each other.

Reach out to others. If you know anyone that is alone, especially the elderly, reach out to them and offer to call them once a day or every few days.

One thing that can help is listening to the radio or watching a live broadcast. As these things are happening live we gain a subtle sense of a shared experience which helps us feel more connected. 

Another way to have shared experiences is to co-ordinate with friends or family to watch a movie or a show together, so that even though you may be physically apart you can still enjoy the experience together.

Anxiety and other overwhelming emotions

This is a situation that can obviously provoke a great deal of anxiety and other emotions that can make us feel overwhelmed. 

Try to limit Social Media time. Social media can be great at connecting us but can also be a source of too much information. As humans we crave information especially at times of uncertainty, and we now live in a world of 24/7 news cycles and online sources and we can find ourselves feeding our anxiety with more and more information. To manage this, be deliberate and limit the amount of time on social media platforms and news outlets and, if you do feel yourself becoming overwhelmed, step away and take a break.

Try to employ some Social Media Hygiene.

Introduce Mindfulness into your daily routine. Mindfulness can help bring us back to the moment and ground us. 

Journal. Write a journal/diary of how you are feeling and what’s going on your you. This helps by allowing you to express your feelings and give them an outlet, in a completely private manner. 

Listen to music. Some studies have shown that listening to music can really have a beneficial effect on our mood. Positive music can lift and motivate us.  Sad music can help us express difficult emotions in a contained manner for the duration of the song or album and can help normalise how we are feeling by connecting to the artist.

These are just a few ideas that you can employ if you find yourself having to isolate.  Most importantly heed Government and NHS advice and do what is right for you.

If you feel Counselling would be helpful for you at this time please get in touch to discuss this.