COVID-19 and Anxiety: Managing anxiety during quarantine

I tried to adjust to confinement and quarantine life and manage anxiety throughout. What worked and what did not work for me.

It has been 7 days of quarantine and self-isolation, I have been trying to apply some advice that people give on the internet and some from my own toolkit. Here is a checklist of what has worked well (and not so well) during these 7 days to manage anxiety. 

What worked well: 

• Strict routine set up and followed during weekdays. Routine included:
  • Waking up early, meditation, stretching, hot shower
  • Breakfast with a podcast,
  • Go to a different desk for work
  • Lunch break at regular time
  • Short walk outside right after work
  • One workout video after that
  • Calling friends in the evening 
  • 1 episode of favorite TV show before bed
• Making an actual list of everything that makes me happy, from dancing, listening to music, hot showers, podcast, being outside, eating Nutella, cheese etc. Make sure to include the small things! Crossing out everything that can’t be done indoors. Making sure I do everything else as often as possible and add it to my routine.
• Calling a friend for emotional support at least once a day turned out to be very very important!! 
• Focusing on learning another language because it is future-oriented and makes me hopeful that there will be an after – when I will get to move around freely and travel, I will be able to practice that skill.

What didn’t work so well: 

• Fall on Twitter/Facebook/[Name a newspaper] corona-information-holes. When I manage to get out of the hole, minutes/hours have passed and it has done nothing but increase my worries. Make yourself reduce access to those or get those app/website blocker that can do it for you.
• Not journaling enough so that all of my tight routine is actually a bit of an escape from my thoughts and all of the worry resurfaces at nights or in my sleep making sleep difficult. Take 5 minutes per day to get them out on paper or by talking it out. 
• Letting myself think too much about the future: “What if this happens, and that happens etc”. and as a consequence feeling overwhelmed by the uncertainty that it holds. We’ll see when we get there, for now, we need to take it day by day. 
• Worrying about worrying. This is a classic anxiety trick. You are worried, and then you are adding a layer on top where you are worried about worrying. “Why am I worrying so much, what if I continue worrying like that for months and… etc.”. That layer is useless, peel it off. 
• Been genuinely worried about people in the world who are losing their jobs, who are not making money, not making ends meet and who are suffering, and not doing anything about it. There are always small things you can do, find a charity and donate, today. 

Okay, that’s it for now, but I will keep updating this post in the following weeks for more advice on do’s and don’t. 

You got this.