Lockdown Survival Kit 2020

Taking care of yourself during lockdown

Lockdown can add to psychological distress, and for those already struggling with mental health disorders it is now more important than ever to keep up with treatment.

Some practitioners have switched to “telehealth” as a contingency plan during lockdown, offering remote consultations via telephone or online platforms such as Zoom, in line with guidelines issued by the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA).

Mental health is much more than a diagnosis. It's your overall psychological well-being. The way you feel about yourself and others as well as your ability to manage your feelings and deal with everyday difficulties. And while taking care of your mental health can mean seeking professional support and treatment, it also means taking steps to improve your emotional health on your own. Making these changes will pay off in all aspects of your life. It can boost your mood, build resilience, and add to your overall enjoyment of life:

Tell yourself something positive

Research shows that how you think about yourself can have a powerful effect on how you feel. When we perceive our self and our life negatively, we can end up viewing experiences in a way that confirms that notion. Instead, practice using words that promote feelings of self-worth and personal power.

Write down something you are grateful for

Gratitude has been clearly linked with improved well-being and mental health, as well as happiness. The best-researched method to increase feelings of gratitude is to keep a gratitude journal or write a daily gratitude list. Generally contemplating gratitude is also effective, but you need to get regular practice to experience long-term benefits. Find something to be grateful for, let it fill your heart, and bask in that feeling.

Focus on one thing (in the moment)

Being mindful of the present moment allows us to let go of negative or difficult emotions from past experiences that weigh us down. Start by bringing awareness to routine activities, such as taking a shower, eating lunch, or walking home. Paying attention to the physical sensations, sounds, smells, or tastes of these experiences helps you focus. When your mind wanders, just bring it back to what you are doing.

Open-up to someone

Knowing you are valued by others is important for helping you think more positively. Plus, being more trusting can increase your emotional well-being because as you get better at finding the positive aspects in other people, you become better at recognizing your own.

Do something for someone else

Being helpful to others has a beneficial effect on how you feel about yourself, especially during this lockdown period. Being helpful and kind and valued for what you do is a great way to build self-esteem. The meaning you find in helping others will enrich and expand your life.

Take a break

In those moments when it all seems like too much, step away, and do anything but whatever was stressing you out until you feel a little better. Sometimes the best thing to do is a simple breathing exercise: Close your eyes and take 10 deep breaths. For each one, count to four as you inhale, hold it for a count of four, and then exhale for another four. This works wonders almost immediately.

Go to bed on time

Sleep deprivation has a significant negative effect on your mood. Try to go to bed at a regular time each day, and practice good habits to get better sleep. These include shutting down screens for at least an hour before bed, using your bed only for sleep or relaxing activities, and restricting caffeinated drinks.

Healthy eating

What you eat nourishes your whole body, including your brain. Carbohydrates (in moderate amounts) increase serotonin, a chemical that has been shown to have a calming effect on your mood. Protein-rich foods increase norepinephrine, dopamine, and tyrosine, which help keep you alert. And vegetables and fruits are loaded with nutrients that feed every cell of your body, including those that affect mood-regulating brain chemicals. Include foods with Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (found in nuts and flaxseed.) Research shows that these nutrients can improve mood and restore structural integrity to the brain cells necessary for cognitive function.

Easy Lockdown Dinner recipes: https://www.healthyfood.com/collections/15-easy-lockdown-dinner-recipes/

21 recipes to keep you sane during lockdown: https://www.foodformzansi.co.za/21-recipes-to-keep-you-sane-during-covid-19-lockdown/

Vegetarian & Vegan options: https://www.facebook.com/thehonestgrazer

Exercise

Your body releases stress-relieving and mood-boosting endorphins before and after you work out, which is why exercise is a powerful antidote to stress, anxiety, and depression. To get the most benefit, aim for at least 30 minutes of exercise daily, and try to do it indoors.

Easy Home Workouts During the Lockdown: https://blog.shawacademy.com/easy-home-workouts-during-the-lockdown/

32 Minute Home Cardio Workout with No Equipment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWy_aOlB45Y

Biokineticist recommendations: https://www.facebook.com/lsbio

Uncertainty Affects Everyone, Just Differently

Uncertainty is anxiety-inducing for everyone, but not everyone is affected on the same scale.

Techniques for Coping with Uncertainty

Identify (and tune out) unproductive worrying

Simply “tuning out” worrisome thoughts are not easy, especially for a very anxious person. That said, the act of taking a step back and recognizing what is and isn’t worth the worry can be a helpful first step.

Practice mindfulness

Mindfulness is active and intentional awareness. You can exercise mindfulness when simply sitting at the kitchen table eating your lunch. To hone the skill, you can practice mindfulness more formally through mindfulness meditation, which trains you to better manage racing thoughts and stay grounded and present when troubling uncertainty abounds.

Develop habits and routines for a sense of control

The current circumstances have disrupted everyone’s normal routine in large ways and small, and much of the uncertainty comes from the lack of an end date to all the social distancing and health threats. But we can create our own routines that give us structure and control on a smaller, more individual scale. There is no right or wrong routine but choosing a few things and sticking to them help more than you realize.

Focus on gratitude

You may not always know the why, how, and when of things, but you can reframe your perspective by acknowledging unexpected upsides and being thankful for what you do have. During this quarantine, for example: more time with loved ones, no more traffic, or time to dive into that stack of books.

Seek out humour

Whether it’s a TV show, funny Tweets, or a group chat with friends, humour is very much about the here-and-now.

Don’t rely on temporary distractions

It’s unhealthy to fill the void left by feelings of uncertainty with escapist behaviours like excessive drinking, using drugs, engaging in emotional eating, or denying there’s a problem. Denial, or avoidance, is one extreme response (the other is over engaging).

Accept what you can't control.

This is easier said than done, admittedly, but acceptance is a big step toward regaining peace of mind.

Stay at home. Don’t visit friends and family, and don’t have them visit you. Keep clear of strangers.

These don’t sound like particularly challenging instructions. If anything, you’d think people would be rather keen on social isolation. It’s nice to have a genuine government-mandated excuse to stay in and avoid all the stress that goes with going out and dealing with other people.

Except, if you look at the news, at social media, or even out of the window at times, it’s clear that a lot of people are struggling with the whole ‘social isolation’ thing. Why? What could be difficult about not going to work and not engaging with others?

As it happens, everything. We humans are an incredibly social species, arguably more so than any other on Earth. Our brains have evolved for socialisation in a variety of different ways, which means this social isolation instruction is a pretty big ask, with a few potential consequences.

Our brains depend on social contact

The human brain has seemingly evolved for socialisation. So, denying it social contact is depriving it of something it deems vital. Our interactions with others also shape our ideas and understandings of both the world around us, and ourselves. We take our cue for the right thing to do from those around us, we base our understanding on what’s correct or appropriate from the groups we belong to.

Indeed, social isolation can cause stress, even to the point where it disrupts brain development and leads to mental health problems later in life.

This isn’t to say that these things will happen during the current pandemic. These are extreme examples of what can happen.

“I won’t go out” vs “You can’t go out”

It’s not that the human brain needs constant, never-ending socialisation. Much as we enjoy it, social interactions do still take time, energy and effort, and the brain can’t sustain this indefinitely. That’s why, as social as we are, we still need privacy as well, in a fundamental way.

Now, we’ve arguably got more privacy than we could ever want. And nobody seems happy about it, with countless people chomping at the bit to mingle, or livestreaming their every waking moment to everyone who’ll listen.

A lot of this can be attributed to a sense of autonomy. One thing the human brain finds typically reassuring and rewarding is a sense of control, the ability to make decisions and determine one’s own actions and situations. That’s why there’s a big difference between choosing to stay at home and being told to stay at home.

The latter means a loss of autonomy. You’re no longer in control of your own life or situation. And that’s stressful, at the subconscious level. Add that to the fact that you’re being denied socialisation, which is also stressful, and you can see why some might struggle to just put up with this.

Social media and the web: an acceptable substitute?

This pandemic happened now, in 2020. At least our society has developed various ways to keep in touch remotely, via technology. It’s interesting to see how social media has gone from, in many people’s eyes, the scourge of society to its saviour in less than a fortnight.

Social media and video streaming software and the like, can they fill the gap, or satisfy the craving, that results from a loss of physical social contact? People have been using them in interesting and creative ways, admittedly. But is it enough? That’s harder to say.

So much of human communication and interaction is nonverbal, via body language, eye contact, expressions, tones, and so on. How many of these are effectively conveyed by remote communication? Not all of them, undoubtedly.

And the human brain is very quick and sensitive to even minor discrepancies in communication. We’re very good at recognising a fake smile, or laugh, and when something is very close to the human norm, but not quite right in terms of all the subtle cues and traits, it tends to freak us out.

But even if social media and other forms of remote communication aren’t giving our brains everything it’s used to, it’s still surely better than nothing. They’re likely to be staving off the more tangible problems of social isolation, and surely that’s no bad thing.

Take responsibility

Start today. You have the power to take positive steps right now to improve your resilience and emotional health. Don’t wait until you're in a crisis to make your mental health a priority. Besides, it is easier to form new habits when you are feeling strong. You can then implement those habits when you need them most.