5 steps to reduce your anxiety about Covid-19 and lockdown
Many of us are feeling more anxious about Covid-19 now than we were in March
More of us are experiencing increased anxiety about the current public health situation and nationwide Level 5 restrictions. Case numbers are rising and more of our loved ones are self-isolating, getting tested and, unfortunately, being diagnosed with Covid-19 since Christmas. Meanwhile, the rest of us are back to working from home while caring for children and juggling other responsibilities. Anxiety over Covid-19 is the last thing you want to add to the mix.
If you're finding it all a bit too much at the moment, here are our tips to combat the stress and care for your mental health as well as your physical health.
For more tips, check out our dedicated Abhaile page here, your guide to staying at home, staying safe and staying well with lots of food, entertainment and health content to steer you through the coming weeks
Have you been scrolling through Twitter and seeing nothing but an endless stream of Covid-19 news, figures and fears? Have the people you follow on Instagram suddenly become expert immunologists and virologists, with even the lighter lifestyle accounts you used to follow for a distraction dedicating themselves to constantly using Covid as content? The best way to combat the growing dread you feel on social media is to step away from it. You can give it up completely or, as you would with a child, limit your time online to one hour a day. You can also mute certain hashtags on Twitter, such as #Covid19 if you want to keep it out of your feed as much as possible.
When it comes to the news, it’s important to stay informed of restrictions and the impact of the virus, but it doesn’t need to consume your every moment. Stop refreshing Twitter and make sure you only get the facts by checking reputable sources. You can’t depend on Facebook for your news so instead buy a newspaper in the morning, check your favourite news website in the afternoon and turn on the news on the television in the evening. This will ensure you’re up-to-date on the developments without overwhelming you throughout the day. You can also sign up to newsletters from the Irish Examiner such as our Lunchtime News Wrap for a summary of the news at 1pm every day. You can also avoid Covid-19 altogether in our Revoiced Newsletter, a Covid-free newsletter with some of the best bits from irishexaminer.com, as chosen by our editor, direct to your inbox every Monday. You can sign up to our newsletters here.
When we were all staying at home in March, we were blessed with bright days and longer evenings to ease us into lockdown life. More people took to the pavements and the parks to increase their step count, stay fit and get out of home and out of their own heads.
It’s not news that walking daily is good for your mental health but as we face into a chilly January, you might feel reluctant to don your walking shoes and take to the streets. There are plenty of initiatives to make sure you get moving and stay moving. Newstalk’s 100 Days of walking is underway with people sharing photos from their walks on social media only adding to the community feel.
Now in its 14th season, Operation Transformation returns to our screens tomorrow with inspirational leaders, heartfelt stories and expert hosts to encourage the nation to get moving lockdown.
And finally, there’s always the classic Couch to 5K challenge to have you pounding the pavements in a bid to run a full 5k in six weeks. There are plenty of apps and websites available and lots of online chat about the challenge where you can seek advice and encouragement. Just remember to dress brightly if you’re going for a walk or a run so other road users can see you.
It can be easy to pick up bad eating habits during lockdown. Rather than sit on the couch eating chocolate all evening, why not rediscover the joy of cooking up some comfort food instead? Fresh, wholesome dishes are sure to have you and your family feeling well but also content.
Food writer Darina Allen recommends some comforting dishes to turn to, including some family favourites that put a smile on everyone’s face and help beat those January blues. Whether it’s her classic roast chicken, fluffy mash and apple pie recipes you turn to or a selection of one-pot dinners to tuck into that will boost our mood and strengthen our immune systems. It’s eating good food to feel better but you won’t feel like you’re enduring a restrictive new year diet.
The best distraction of all: your favourite things. January’s long nights are the perfect time to curl up beside the fire with your favourite book to get lost in another world, whether it’s Jane Eyre and her time in Thornfield with Mr Rochester, Frodo’s adventures across Middle Earth with the Fellowship of the Ring, or Aisling’s misadventures in Ballygobbard.
Alternatively, if you feel you can’t concentrate on a book, schedule a regular movie night at home to rewatch your most beloved films or to introduce your children to the movies you grew up with, like The Neverending Story.
Our columnist Derval O’Rourke has some great tips on managing stress to ease the strain of lockdown.
“We all have COVID on the brain at the moment, so let’s use that to our advantage, and turn it into a prompt for how to address stress in the leadup to Christmas,” she wrote in a recent article featuring these tips:
– Check in. We should be checking in with ourselves as often as we check our phones. How are you? Take time to actually notice.
– Observe. Watch how stress can ebb and flow, peak and trough. What helps to ease it? What’s exacerbating it? If we’re not tuned in to how it’s presenting and what’s triggering it, we are much less likely to be able to act appropriately.
– Validate. We cannot be happy all the time. You are allowed to feel a broad spectrum of emotions, including grief, anger, fear, anxiety. Validate your feelings, and remove the layers of stress associated with trying to 'fix' them.
– Investigate. What does the situation warrant? Is the issue something within your control, or outside of it? Save valuable energy by differentiating between the two, and focussing on controlling the controllable.
– Decide. It’s all well and good to follow the above steps, but you must then decide on the appropriate action and see it through. What would best address the stress you’re experiencing?"
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