How to cope with lockdown blues

The collective pressure of isolation, fear, and uncertainty brought about by the pandemic is taking its toll on our mental health. But remember that when some days are hard, we have the ability to take charge of our thoughts and the way we think. It then becomes important to make an effort to cultivate positive practices to maintain a healthy mind. Here’s a list of things we can do to help keep our mental health positive and to keep the blues away.

Sleep. Seven to eight hours or more of regular, quality sleep helps boost your immune system, improve your mood, and your tolerance to the day’s challenges. Not getting enough sleep can raise your stress levels and leave you feeling tired and easily annoyed.

Practice deep breathing. Breathe in deeply through your nose, filling your chest and abdomen with air for 5 to 7 seconds, hold for 3 seconds then slowly release your breath through your mouth for 5 seconds. Repeat 5 times or continue for 5 minutes. 

Deep breathing is something helpful to learn and try to practice every day. It’s one of the simplest and easiest ways to detoxify, energize, reduce stress, etc. Oxygen cleanses the body and mind, and though breathing naturally expels the carbon dioxide in our body, deep breathing makes our system work harder to get rid of this waste. 

Calm your mind. Take deep, slow breaths and focus on what is happening at the moment, meditate. Doing so relaxes your body and mind and helps ease the stress and relieve anxiety. A calm mind makes it easier to make decisions and deal with whatever issues that are bothering you.

Smile. A genuinely happy smile does wonders in making someone else’s dreary day less dismal. Smiling lowers anxiety and raises feelings of happiness, and it makes you look more attractive. Also, people tend to return the favor, smiling is contagious. As much as smiling improves our disposition, it does the same for others. The brain interprets facial expressions and often, we subconsciously mimic what we see.

Improve your diet. The food we eat affects our health as well as the way we feel. Eating right and staying hydrated enhance our mood, increase our endurance, and help us think more objectively. Eating regularly and eating the right kinds of food keep our blood sugar level steady, because when this drops, the feeling of exhaustion, irritability and depression go up.

Keep a gratitude journal. Write down the things you are thankful for, and when you feel the world start to crowd in on you, remind yourself of the many good things that you take for granted. Doing this raises your overall satisfaction with life and helps you refocus and appreciate what you have. 

Compliment others. It feels good to be commended by people we know, especially those who are dear to us, but it is also equally uplifting to give others a compliment because it helps us convey our appreciation for each other. Giving honest praise makes other people feel good and makes others want to be around you.

Exercise. Depending on where you are at, it would be a good idea to get as much exercise out in the fresh air for your physical and mental endurance. Get into the moment, gear up with your activewear, and take a walk, go for a quick run or ride a bike. Do something physical that makes you happy. Unplug, give your brain a weekend from work. As much as we love our jobs, it can exhaust and wear us out. Give yourself a break, put your phone down and turn your computer off before you burn yourself out.

Stop overscheduling yourself. In the pursuit of getting more things done, we tend to overcommit ourselves, not thinking of the consequences, until exhaustion takes over and starts affecting our performance, productivity, and relationship with other people. When we are overscheduled, we do not have the time to think about our priorities, what also happens is that we end up wasting our time doing things that aren’t really important.

Think positive. Having positive thoughts helps in keeping stress at bay and improves your physical health. People who tend to look at the brighter side of life have healthier lifestyles and eat better. Being positive allows you to see the humor in an adverse situation, no matter how difficult it is, and focus on finding solutions rather than zeroing in on the disappointment. 

There’s a lot more to go on, but what is important is to remind ourselves that this is only temporary and instead focus on taking care of ourselves and of each other. We just have to remember the wonderful things we have in our lives, accept our circumstances, and manage what we can.