8 Things You Can Do to Cope When Living Alone During the Pandemic

Apr 10

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If you already lived alone before this global pandemic, you’re probably used to being on your own during the week. But all day? Everyday?? Even the weekend??? That, you may not be used to. During the first week you were required to self-isolate, you might have felt that things weren’t that different—maybe you even enjoyed the break from your regular routine. But by week three, four, five, you might be feeling stir-crazy, anxious, stressed or even depressed. So what can you do to get through this?

1. Create a weekday routine.

Though there may be nothing binding you to it, having a routine sends a signal to your brain that there are things you can control. It adds certainty in world of uncertainty. You can’t control what happens out there, but you can control what you do each day. And there’s no one-size fits all in terms of what that routine will look like: you get to decide. Make it doable, fun where possible, and consistent. And whenever your weekend is, whether it’s Saturday and Sunday or Wednesday and Thursday, have a different routine or NO routine for your weekend.

What if I have been laid off?

First of all, let’s just name it: this sucks! Even if you hated your job, you probably didn’t plan on quitting cold turkey without a plan for paying the bills. If you have been laid off or your business has had to close its doors, part of this routine might be taken up with 80% of your time going toward applying for aid, researching resources or looking for new work. Here in Denver, the Department of Public Health and Environment has created a website full of resources. There is info on everything from job assistance, assistance for older adults, food assistance, mental health resources, assistance for people living with disabilities, etc. Check your state and city’s government pages to see what resources might be available to you.

2. Connect with others virtually.

Download one of the many free virtual conferencing apps (Zoom, Skype, Houseparty, Facetime) if you have a smart phone, tablet or laptop with a camera and microphone and set up group hangouts or one on one chats with friends or family. Even the most introverted among us needs human connection. If you do better in larger groups where you don’t feel pressured to pipe in a lot, invite a larger number of friends and vice versa if you’re craving sharing thoughts and ideas in a more in-depth setting.

I feel like I don’t have anyone, help!

If you’ve been disconnected from others in your life even before the Coronavirus pandemic, this time might offer you a chance to meet up with new friends online. There are several online support groups popping up all over the world as well as virtual meetups and facebook groups geared toward bringing people together. I am offering a free, online COVID-related anxiety support group on Zoom each week from my home office in Colorado.

3. Keep your space organized.

Yes, it’s a pain to take the time to get things organized—especially if it’s gotten a bit out of control…but in the long run, you’ll feel more productive in a space where everything is in its place. Aby Garvey, founder of the Simplify 101 website, offers some great tips for taking some of the pain out of organization.

4. Thoughts aren’t facts.

You feel unmotivated one day and you have the thought: “Maybe I’m just lazy and I’ll always be lazy,” you then feel sad, hopeless and helpless. The thought feels like a fact because you can remember times you’ve felt unmotivated in the past, so it feels like there is evidence that it is a fact. The emotion also feels like a fact because you feel it so deeply. However, when we go looking for justification for a thought or feeling, what happens? We usually find it. In the scientific world, this is called confirmation bias and is used to describe the phenomenon whereby a scientist starts an experiment with a hypothesis and instead of looking at ALL the evidence, they look only for what confirms their hypothesis.

So, if you have thoughts and feelings come up over the coming weeks that don’t feel so pleasant, try to remember that you, like all humans, are dynamic and complex and can’t be reduced down to a handful of past experiences. Your past doesn’t dictate your future: you do.

5. Let the sun shine in.

Here in Colorado, as in most of the world, we are under a stay-at-home order. If you’re fortunate enough to have your own backyard, balcony, lanai, porch, etc., get your outdoor time in in one of those spaces. If you don’t have an outdoor space at home, don a mask of some kind and spend some time walking, hiking, sitting outside, or biking if possible. There are some pretty interesting studies that suggest connection between being outside or being in a space filled with sunlight and how well our internal clocks (think circadian rhythm) function.

Why do I feel so down when it’s gloomy out or I haven’t been outside in awhile?

Researchers think that it’s possible that some of us are a little more sensitive to the lack of sunshine than others, which is why some of us experience more depression and anxiety in the winter months or in areas of the world where there isn’t much sunshine. Getting some time outdoors may aid your body’s natural ability to process serotonin and keep it at normal levels in your brain.

It’s clear: we all need some time in the sun. However, don’t forget the sunscreen! Skin cancer isn’t gonna help with anything.

6. Move your body.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that the average person needs about 150 minutes of aerobic physical activity (roughly 30 minutes, 5 days a week) and two days spent doing some sort of muscle strengthening per week. But what are the benefits? Well, they are mighty. Exercise can help us regulate our emotions, help us sleep better and can help curb cravings for unhealthy food. When we’re under a lot of stress…like many of us are right now…our fight or flight response gets activated, resulting in the release of adrenaline and cortisol. If we’re facing off with a wild animal, this is very handy, but when the stressful situation is just regular life, instead of going back to normal, those chemicals just keep building up in our bodies. And this is not good for us. Aerobic exercise, in particular, helps send a signal to our brains that we can release some of these chemicals and after we stop exercising, our heart rates return to normal and we may start to feel better. If we can make exercise a regular thing, the levels of other “feel good” chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine may start to increase too.

But I’m starting from couch-potato status…that sounds like a lot!

If 5-6 days a week of movement is overwhelming, start with what feels doable. A step forward is a step forward. Here are a few of the thousands of free online, beginner, at-home workouts you could try: Option One, Option Two, Option Three.

7. Limit your news intake.

This is a tough one, I get it. You’re isolated from others physically and maybe you have loved ones in cities far and wide and you want to know what’s going on out there. You want to feel as prepared as you can be and you want to make sense of it all. However, there’s a limit to the value of news consumption. Go over that limit and you will find that those same stress chemicals we just talked about: cortisol, especially, start to flood your body once again. Your brain sends the message: Danger! Danger! And once again, your body prepares to fight or flee.

But staying informed is important, so what do I do?

Well, there is some research to suggest that reading or listening to news may be a better alternative to watching it, so maybe you can start there. If you consume three hours of news a day, can you cut one hour? A half hour? If you’re worried about friends and family in other parts of the country/world, can you ask them to let you know if something changes rather than having to get all the news alerts on your phone? Experiment with what feels doable and go from there.

8. Be kind to yourself.

You’ve found yourself in an unexpected, unprecedented, totally strange, terrible-on-many-levels situation. And you’re surviving it on your own! On your own, but not alone. You might learn a new skill, get in touch with your creative side and reconnect (virtually) with old friends or you know what, you might not. You might do the things you normally do and spend more time doing those things. You might try out some new things one week and drop them cold the next. Whatever you do (within the framework of safety and legality), however you survive this, is ok.

But what’s going to happen? Everything feels so uncertain.

I’d love to tell you, and myself for that matter, that this will all be over soon. My hope is that one or more of the ideas shared in this post might make this time more bearable for you. But the truth is that we don’t know when this will be over, we don’t know what will come next and, what works this week, in terms of coping, might not work next week. So, when in doubt, skip to tips #2 and #8. Stay connected when you can and please try to be kind to yourself.

Resources…so many resources!

If you want or need more resources (there are a TON) please check out the lists I’ve compiled below. And if you like more content from me, click here to subscribe to Maggie Sellars Counseling, LLC’s Blog to gain access to all past and future posts.