How To Keep Sane During A Quarantine
When the Malaysian government announced the Movement Control Order (“MCO”) a little shy of two weeks ago, many of us cherished the thought of staying home, not needing to wake up 2 hours earlier for work. My Instagram feed was flooded with everyone’s snapshot of working from home and surprisingly, everyone’s amazing home cooked dishes.
It was not until after a few days that we found it difficult to stay home. We needed bread. We needed groceries. We needed some air. Above all, I think we just needed some sort of human interaction. Now, I’ve always been introverted by nature and staying home doesn’t really bother me much but I must admit that I too, need to get out sometimes.
However, seeing the rise of the number of COVID-19 cases, our Ministry of Health warned us not leave our houses, unless absolutely necessary. Be that as it may, if this is the case, everyone would go cuckoo cooped up in their respective homes.
Of course, I’m no expert in mental health, but it is something that is close to my heart and I’ve always been an ardent advocate of lifting the stigmatic veil around it. So, I’ve penned down a few things that you can do, during this trying time, to take care of your mental health.
- STAY HOME, SAVE LIVES
This one is rather obvious, isn’t it? Stay home and if you show symptoms of the coronavirus, make your way to the nearest government hospital and get yourself checked. Please, for the love of humanity, be honest about your condition and travel history. Those working in the hospitals are risking their lives for you and the least that you can do is to tell the fucking truth.
The lesser contact you make with the outside world, the lesser your chance of contracting the coronavirus. Contracting the virus isn’t going to boost your mental health, let me tell you that.
2. MAKE YOURSELF A ROUTINE
I found this one particularly difficult myself. The first few days into the MCO, I binged on Netflix till I got bored of it. I got bored of Netflix. Yeah, let that sink in. It was devastating because I didn’t have anything else to do. I ended up eating vigorously to curb my boredom and I gained a shit ton of weight. One day I woke up and told myself that I wasn’t going to waste all the time that I’ve got. I was determined to fit back into my favorite grandma panties!
So I decided to make myself a routine, just like how I used to do in my university days.
My weekday routine vaguely reads as follows:-
8.00 a.m : Get your ass off the bed and wash up
8.30 a.m : Have breakfast & make yourself an amazing cup of coffee
9.00 a.m : Read all emails & decide what needs to be done (I write this down because I’m old school)
9.30 a.m : Get on Spotify & choose a playlist that suits your mood that morning
10.00 a.m : Crack on working! (based on the list I’ve made earlier)
12.30 p.m : Check for new emails and make another list (if needed)
1.00 p.m : LUNCH RAWRRRR
1.30 p.m : Short nap
2.00 p.m : Get back to business! (don’t forget to get up & walk every now and again)
6.00 p.m : Wind down & check for new incoming emails
7.00 p.m : Wash up and make sure there’s amazing music playing in the background!
7.30 p.m : DINNER RAWRRRR
8.00 p.m : Watch TV (but there’s hardly anything good on Astro so I substitute it with reading)
10.00 p.m : Sleep
It takes determination and practice to adhere to your self made routine but I assure you that it makes a lot of difference to your general well-being.
3. GET YOURSELF HOOKED
Now now, I’m not talking about that. I want you to find something that you can immerse yourself in. It could be interior designing, scrapbook building, cleaning, Netflix, drawing, coloring, graphic designing, reading, coding, gardening or even (finally) building your side hustle; it doesn’t matter what, as long as it keeps you alive and your creative juice flowing!
I understand that some of you may not even have the strength to do anything during this trying time and to you, I say, have faith — you can’t see the stars without a little darkness.
4. EXERCISE
If you’ve been one of those who’s always had an excuse not to exercise or if you’ve always been too busy to fit exercise into your schedule, now’s the time. You’ve got all the time in a day to fit at least 30 minutes to stretch those muscles. No more excuses, ya?
30 jumping jacks
30 squats
30 sit ups
30 planks (15 seconds each)
30 lunges
The above makes for one set and it only takes approximately 30 minutes. You got this!
All things considered, calling on all workout junkies — this is your time to shine! A whole lot of us, me included, would really appreciate live videos of your workout regime.
5. SOCIAL DISTANCING
This is perhaps my favorite one thus far. Like I’ve said earlier, I’m introverted by nature, enjoy my own company and love my own space. It isn’t with great sacrifice (to my mental health) to get where I am today and I’ve been trying to help everyone around me to get to where they want to be.
When the Ministry of Health of Malaysia and the World Health Organisation told us to keep a distance of at least 1 metre from each other, I initially thought it was ridiculous and wasn’t going to work but look at all of us, respecting each other’s personal space in supermarkets when we’re hit with this pandemic. Well done, all!
However, don’t just practice social distancing with outsiders. Youngsters like you and me (don’t rain on my parade please) can be carriers of the virus but be asymptomatic at the same time so if you live with elderly people, please tread with caution.
Let me tell you that it’s not easy to socially distance yourself with the people you live with but desperate times call for desperate measures, right? Nobody said love is easy.
This is the perfect time to rediscover yourself. This is the perfect time for you to fall in love with yourself all over again. The way you stare at yourself in the mirror, the way you chew on that tasty briyani, the way you smile when you see something funny on Facebook, the way you frown when your sibling says something stupid, the way you get angry at people who abandon babies; everything about you is worth falling in love with. I’ve always told my friends that there is no greater love than self love and I’ll stand by my statement till the day I breathe my last.
Socially distance yourself from others but yourself.
Staying home doesn’t necessarily mean being lifeless. On the contrary, it means you’re being given the chance to work on yourself without having to worry about time. I’ve learnt that working from home (to me) is much more productive as I get approximately 4–5 hours (that comes from my daily travelling time) to work on me and my skills.
As of this moment, there has been 668,363 confirmed cases around the world and this pandemic has claimed over 30,000 lives across the globe. This is alarming as the number of cases keeps increasing by the day. We owe it, especially, to our frontliners to do our part and flatten the curve. Let’s fight this pandemic together by staying home, keeping clean and doing the things that keep us alive.
My heart goes out to all frontliners out there; for without you, we would know not of a better tomorrow.
