Anxiety and Isolation: Dealing With COVID-19 Quarantine

Are you isolating or in quarantine and ready to lose your mind? The situation we’re experiencing with COVID-19 is enough to give anyone anxiety. We have a few tips that may help when it feels like the walls are starting to close in.

Quick Read:
Many U.S. citizens are hunkering down in an effort to slow the coronavirus’ spread, but that’s left countless people feeling anxious and lonely. Stave off the effects by creating a daily routine that includes regular meals and exercise. Reach out to friends and family via Skype, Zoom or FaceTime, get an online gig to help make ends meet or enrich yourself with meditation or free online classes. We have tips to get through isolation like a champ.

Anxiety Over COVID-19 Shutdowns and Quarantines? Try These Tips.

A Regular Routine Can Help Create a New Normal

Creating a daily routine, whether you’re working from home or laid off, will help you hold on to a sense of normalcy in your life. Get up at the same time each morning and go to bed at a set time each night, just like you regularly would. Get dressed, even if you do it at noon. Eat three meals a day, cooking what you can; it will pass some of the time, and it will help you establish a healthy routine while you’re stuck at home.

Schedule regular exercise. Not much room? Try this 20-minute beginning yoga video or 10-minute calisthenics workout you can do anywhere.

Technology Lets Us Reach Out

We live in an incredible age where applications like Skype, Zoom and FaceTime can keep us connected, even when we have to keep our distance. Reconnect with distant family, catch up with old friends or hang out virtually with your besties in a video chat. Just because you can’t go out doesn’t mean you can’t have a drink with your buds.

There Might Be Online Opportunities

If you’re among the many people who can’t go to work right now because of business shut-downs, depending on your strengths and talents, you might consider spending part of each day working a temporary online gig. But if you’re facing anxiety over dwindling reserves and mounting bills, there are resources for you. Most states provide 26 weeks of unemployment insurance (some provide more, some less). Many states have also announced moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures for the next 60 days. Call 211 or access the 211.org website for help with food, social services, or other no-health emergency services. And check the Federal Government Benefits Resources for Individuals and Small Businesses.

Many Cultural Resources Are Free

Sometimes losing yourself in different worlds from your own can be a way to temporarily reduce your stress. There are some wonderful cultural resources that have been made available for free. Open Culture currently has over 1,500 online courses, 1,500 movies and 800 audiobooks — all free!.

A Virtual Tour Can Transport You From Your Current Reality

You may be confined to your home, but the places you can go are endless. A number of virtual tours are being offered. Like books or plays, a virtual tour might allow you to live vicariously for a little while and escape stress, isolation, and anxiety through virtual travel.

Google Arts and Culture platform is offering virtual tours of more than 2,500 museums. You can check out the MoMA in New York or hop over to the Louvre in Paris.

If you’re missing nature, you can also take virtual tours of Yellowstone National Park and Yosemite National Park. Zoos and aquariums, including the San Diego Zoo and the Georgia Aquarium, are offering live webcam viewings of their animals.

You can even take a virtual tour of the Great Wall of China or Mars!

Practicing Mindfulness Might Help You Focus

Consider learning mindfulness techniques like meditation to help alleviate stress and anxiety. Not your thing? You might find self-help apps like Breathe2Relax and Dare – Break Free From Anxiety more helpful.

If all else fails, soak in a bubble bath or steam yourself out in a hot shower. Or turn on your favorite music and dance it out like no one’s watching… because, quite literally, no one is watching.

Hunkering down can be easy and relatively stress-free, and we can get through it together. It can be a time of reflection and personal growth. These extreme measures are only temporary, but your choices could help to protect countless other lives in the months to come.

~Here’s to Your Healthy Ascension!