Hi, darling! How have you been lately? We’re currently going through a hard time for everyone, so even taking care of your mental health in quarantine can be hard.
Therefore, today I want to help you a bit to take care of your wellbeing. It’s not about ignoring what’s going on around you, but about knowing how to handle stress while figuring out your new routine.
If you’re completely full of responsibilities and duties even in home (and even more if you’ve kids at home, are studying online or working remotely), it’s normal to feel overwhelmed.
For this reason, I want to suggest some activities that could help you to reduce your stress, keep you busy (in case you aren’t yet), and make you feel happier.
What should you know about your mental health in quarantine?
Before I begin telling you my tips, I want you to consider you’re not forced to feel well! Being sad, stressed or worried is a normal (and acceptable) way to react. What I want for you it’s to be healthy, and that’s related to your general wellbeing.
If you’re always worried or overwhelmed, your health will suffer it and you won’t have time to recover. Therefore, balance doesn’t only mean to have a more realist and healthy routine, but also giving you space to rest, understand your emotions, and face them. Understanding your limits is healthy too!
Therefore, even if my tips will help you to create a “routine”, it’s also important to know you won’t always be able to stick 100% to it, and that’s ok too. Learning new things or working in your personal projects is great, but being fine is even more important.
Bye PJs, hi outfits!
I know, I know. You’re not going anywhere, and your t-shirt feels comfy. However, the benefits of doing so is great, both for feeling better as well as to increase your productivity.
You don’t need heels or skinny jeans. A comfy yet cute outfit (such as a romper to deal with summer) is an excellent choice: just remember to change back into PJs to sleep.
Schedules: are they your best friends?
If you love schedules and sticking to them, this is the moment to keep using them while being more flexible. Even if you can’t manage to hit all your to-do list, it’s fine! A bit of structure can help you to keep your life in order, as long as you don’t overstock your agenda, and keep you busy and distracted.
The keyword here is balance: agendas are supposed to give you structure and reference, but if you need to rest, there’s no need to feel guilty.
Treat yourself!
A bad habit we usually justify is completely forgetting ourselves to just take care of our responsibilities or others. However, I’ll take this moment to remember you that yes, you’re valuable! Yes, you deserve love and attention! And YES! You deserve taking care of yourself!
You don’t need to forget about savings for treating yourself. Something as simple as a walking outside (remember using surgical mask!), a beauty routine, or talking with a friend can be wonderful for you.
And since we’re talking about this, I want to mention sleeping as a gesture of love towards yourself. Sure, maybe you find hard to sleep early! However, going to bed (relatively) early and sleeping enough is important.
This is not only about being full of energy next day– this is a great way to keep your health (both physical and mental) in great condition, handling the stress correctly, and thinking clearly.
Keep your house organized (as much as you can)
Disorder is stressing (or at least it is for me, and I’m not the only one!). So make sure to create a routine for organizing and cleaning daily with the help of your family if you’re currently living with them.
You don’t need to deep-clean everyday: something as simple as putting things back to their place daily and keeping floors clean is enough to keep your spirits high.
As you can see, these are simple strategies, but all of them can help you to avoid feeling overwhelmed. And even though I’ve a 5th tip (surprise!), I want to clarify this can help you, but you shouldn’t feel forced to it.
Learning new things is a great way to forget boredom and find new passions. However, you’re not forced to always do something new or be the most productive person around.
It’s valid to just watch Netflix for a while, and it’s valid to pick a day to just be lazy instead of learning something new or being productive. Sometimes, taking a break is more effective than working for 8 hours, and you need to know when it’s better not to do anything.
So, tell me below. What are you doing to protect your mental health in this quarantine?