By Jigyasa Tandon:
Sitting at home? This is easy, you can breeze through the day and decide your activities. More importantly, this is your choice! Sitting at home with all compulsion and full force into action with no option of stepping out. Well, no this is ain’t easy and full of mental blues and yellows. And since it’s not your choice, this will definitely lead to more anxiety and less managing of issues and actions and everything going in bizarre directions!
Well well, with more constraints and less freedom and burden of news and chances of multiplying of disease, COVID-19, everything seems pressure. Mind comes to a standstill and everything around seems floating in the air.
But in a day or so, with the little system put in place, I thought it out from the perspective of my profession, i.e. a psychologist, I sat down to list some possible ideas to perform at home while balancing mental health. Here’s a list of some things I am catching up with and hoping some ideas might inspire you too. Mental health blues in these times of distress and strain can be actively dealt with by taking care of yourself and your loved ones! This can be done through:
1) Trying to connect with your family members, a fresh start from scratch can help design the blank slate differently.
This could be done by connecting dots by choosing a common topic to talk about or taking to a game of cards or Uno over a cup of tea or coffee. This helps build excitement and enthusiasm and keep things comfortable and under control maintaining a standard of comfort. This further functions to letting of stories pouring in.
2) Involving in some activity that was always on your bucket list.
This could be as simple as cooking or filling in colors in a color book or maybe a print out of drawing? Or perhaps drawing/sketching! YouTube and Play Store are full of helping aids for this!
3) Increasing knowledge and evolving a skill set.
Google has launched new courses apart from courses available online on upgrade, Udemy, etc. You can sign up for any of those to increase your skills and knowledge.
4) Taking to books.
Novels, journals, articles placed within a diary and dictionary can be a great source of learning and keeping up with a game of words and knowledge. Did you know 11% of people are left-handed?
5) Involving with people online with the help of technology.
Video calls, video conferencing, live shows, live chats are a great way to entertain yourself and keep social relations alive! You can breathe your space and not let conflicts pouring in. Instead in the freshness of the air, you can resolve conflicts and engage in discussions by keeping your point in place. Also, as PSY-Fi: For A Healthy Mind did along with The Jigsaw Company was organizing virtual open mic on Instagram Live! This allowed people from across the nation to come forward and participate in the open mic and create an environment of recreation and entertainment.
6) Serving to be socially responsible by not creating panic and going out just because you have to.
This is just to ensure that the incubation period allotted to is used effectively and doesn’t let the disease grow by multiplicity. Also always sounding rebellious and acting out just because you have isn’t a cool thing after all
7) Exercising and keeping a healthy diet.
Home can serve as a good excuse to stretch those muscles a bit and stick to a healthy food lifestyle which always found to be in a fix because you know *excuse*. Anyway, you maintain a healthy food style by not ordering or consuming outside food (unless necessary) and eating healthy homemade dishes. This may lead to a load of experimenting happening! At least my mother is happy as she is finally caught me into the trap of teaching these skills and making my marriage ready (though, I call it, making me independent ready). Moreover, videos of healthy exercising are all brought to easy access through YouTube or apps like healthify me.
8) Catching up with sleep.
Sleep, the word most skipped on a daily fast-paced routine. This is good to catch up on sleep a bit and relax by resting or adopting the Shavasana pose of yoga. This will help the body to relax and reload the energy and system by overcoming the stretch of constant pull and push.
This is a list from my vision of how to keep the mental and physical game up during the phase of quarantine. If you have any further ideas, share it in the comment section below. And yes, my wishes and advice of keeping healthy and safe by indoors and taking WHO directed measures of washing hands, using alcohol-based sanitizers and wearing a mask if going out.
Jigyasa Tandon is a Counselling Psychologist and a Mental Health Educationist, NIMHANS, Bangalore. She has been running a start up around Mental health needs of a person by the name – PSY-Fi :For A Healthy Mind.