Mental Health During Lock-Down
How to avoid a slippery mental slope in quarantine
Apr 15 · 3 min read
hat’s
the point in showering or getting dressed? Why should I bother shaving
or putting on makeup? Does it even matter whether or not I eat well, or
exercise, or stick to a sleeping schedule?”
This type of inner dialogue is common right now, and I understand the sentiment. But if it sounds familiar to you, be careful.
Why? Because these foundational actions prime you for the day ahead:
for how you feel, how you think, and all of your further actions. And
when you let your foundation slide, it’s easy to drag your whole self
down with it.
‘I’m happy because I’m singing’
Do our actions determine how we feel? Or do our feelings determine how we act?
I
used to believe it was the latter. But during my doctoral studies in
neuroscience, I came across something that changed my mind: a
psychological theory of emotion.
William James, one of the greatest psychologists of our time, proposed that emotions are caused by our reactions to external events.
The best way I’ve seen this theory depicted is in a cartoon showing a
little bird singing in a tree. A man standing underneath the tree looks
up at the bird and says, “You must be singing because you’re happy.” The
little bird looks down with a smile and says, “Not at all. I’m happy
because I’m singing.”
Stop asking ‘What’s the point?’
If
you felt good before the pandemic, you probably don’t realize it, but
your foundational behaviors played a pivotal role in making that
possible. When you lose those behaviors, you lose the processes that
primed you into action and determined your state of being.
Consider
your commute home from work. This event can act as a trigger, priming
your brain to switch from work mode to home mode. Working remotely in
quarantine means you no longer have that trigger. If you’ve been feeling
distracted in the evenings, you can blame the global pandemic, yes, but
it’s also worth acknowledging that you’ve lost a foundational behavior.
To
feel as good as you can under the circumstances, try to make your days
look as they did before the quarantine. This will require some extra
willpower and creativity. For example, even if you’re working from home,
follow your morning routine
as if you were going into the office. That means getting up when your
alarm goes off, showering, and getting dressed. It might also mean
stepping out of the house, taking a walk around the block, and then
reentering your home so your brain knows it’s work time.
After your workday, have a ritual that helps you transition into your personal time. You might go for a run, meditate, or change into comfier clothes. If you’re self-isolating with a partner, continue to have date night.
This
advice might sound overly simplistic, but with so much uncertainty
surrounding us, it’s harder than it looks. Last week, I was speaking to a
client about not letting his routines slide. The very next day, I
caught myself wondering, “What’s the point in taking a shower today?”
Thankfully,
I caught this thought before it went anywhere. I took a shower, felt
great, and had a positive day. If I had let that one thing slide, who
knows what else I might have dragged along for the ride?
Thanks to Jordan Gross and Michael Thompson.
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