Protect Your Mental Health During Quarantine
With the rise in Coronavirus infections, the need for self-quarantine or self-isolate are becoming essential as these are the only ways with which coronavirus can be prevented. Even the doctors and health institutions are recommending for the self-quarantine to the people to stay prevented from becoming ill following all the possible exposures and those who are actually sick due to COVID-19, should self-isolate for at least 14 days to prevent the spread of the diseases. No doubt, during such a panic situation, everyone is worried about their daily lifestyle and they are collecting food, toilet papers, medications and much more things to stay comfortable during quarantine, but among them the biggest challenge will be your mental health and effectively you can manage that.
Follow your regular routine
The very first thing that you should consider is to avoid sleeping and staying up late for which you can set your alarm for your usual time and stick with your morning routine. Take shower, eat what you normally do, make the bed, and you can skip your uniform or dressing up, but do look nice and don’t just stay in pajamas. If you are among those who are working from home, you should stick with your work routine for which you should be proactive and make plans for the whole day. If you are idle then you can create a schedule for your mealtime, fun time, reading time, phone usage time, exercising time, and for much more things. Write everything in an order even if you have very little to do, these time set-ups can help you to balance your life in a better way.
Make plans for your whole week
You can make plans for the whole week but make sure to keep the weekends quite different from your regular day as you can make breakfast or do something that can keep you involved as well as engaged in a better way for which you can also consider some projects such as painting. These little things are the great way for the emotional well-being and keep you stay engaged and involved even if you are mentally disturbed.
Go outside
If you are confined to the house, you can take daily walks or jog, preferably in a leafy area and don’t forget to exercise to make your mood better and if you are stuck inside try to do workouts inside the homes. You can check the internet to find the exercises you can do in your home as quarantine can give you more time to work out than usual. You can set SMART goals and give them a priority for your daily routine.
Be intentional
Use some extra time very intentionally and pick at least one or two things that you always wanted to learn and your plans regarding how you can do and teach yourself. Plan to come out of this quarantine with a new skill or hobby and devote at least an hour or two of your daily schedule to work on these newly developed skills.
Shift your mental space
Finally, you can use the principles of mindfulness to shift your mental state from frustration to a stable situation so you can watch the videos, write your own content, or do sketching during quarantine. If you will go with this stability, it can reduce the distress as well as keep you open to the positive or simply interesting things that can happen during such an unusual experience.