Managing Mental Health with the Quarantine

So with it being Mental Health Awareness month, I wanted take this opportunity to bring to light some of the mental health issues I’m trying to navigate. Mental health is a part of being human and it’s definitely normal to go through. However, what I’ve learned is that the longer we dwell in that negative headspace, the more it affects our long term health. For me, as soon as the month of May hit, so did a few mental health issues. So here are a few of the issues I’m dealing with and how I navigate them. Now, I’m not a doctor nor a mental health expert, but hey ,maybe something will work for you!

Going Between Anxiety and Feeling Good-As soon as the month of May hit, my anxiety came back. All of last week my headspace kept fluctuating between feeling anxious about the current situation and life in general to feeling good. In fact the fluctuation actually irritated me.

• What I Did: In order to cope, I did the one thing I could do-which was to try to feel as good as possible by doing stuff to make me happy, such as facetiming with my friends, listening to podcasts, practicing self care, even cooking.

Restlessness-Even mostly introverted people like myself feel the need to get out and socialize normally. As lockdown restrictions eased up a bit, I found myself wanting to immediately go to a friends house just to see someone in person. Now, obviously I used my better judgment and didn’t go, but it was still a little annoying.

• What I Did: Increased my facetime calls. Normally, I try to talk to a friend or two once a week to check in and see how everyone is doing. During this headspace, I made it a point to talk to people throughout the week, and that definitely helped. My restlessness reduced and I began to feel more settled.

Getting annoyed at EVERYTHING-Again, it’s just a simple sign of the lockdown getting to all of us in some way. I had moments where I was getting annoyed when my husband was talking to me about something or when I was too lazy to help myself to a glass of water. Not good right?

• What I Did: First, recognizing that in myself allowed me to step away from the situation and straighten out my headspace by spending time with myself, doing whatever I could to calm myself was the trick to this situation: meditation, Netflix, podcasts, stepping outside, just doing me :).

All of our emotion: happiness, anger, anxiety, surprise, gratitude, etc., are all a part of what makes us human beings. In fact, not having them at all makes us robots. So therefore, whenever we get into that funky headspace, remember it’s just who we are and how we’re dealing with the situation. All we have to do is ease our way out and/or get that extra help if we need it. I hope all of you are staying sane, staying safe, and staying strong.