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Ways Not To Go Insane While Isolating

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Ways Not To Go Insane While Isolating

Here’s a quick round up of the things that have helped me the most in the past week (As an introvert home with seven kids):

  • Put on nice clothes in the morning
  • Wear clothes I have made (I did that for a long time, but this winter I gradually stopped. Now I’m back at it.)
  • Listen to an audio book and do something with my hands while I listen (folding laundry and handsewing)
  • Rethink the kids’ chores and try something new
  • Be Flexible about Homeschool
  • Take a walk alone and leave the phone at home
  • Reinstate bedtime reading with the Littles
  • Find and share funny and hopeful memes and quotes about the pandemic
  • Be kind to myself about how much time I’m spending on social media
  • Bake comfort food
  • Zoom meet-up with the extended fam (We have never done this, and it was SO good to see the fam together on the screen and hear updates from everyone)
  • My Afrobeats Pandora station –  it’s curated to be relaxing, repetitive, and rhythmic. I’ll be going about my business and then realize my body has started dancing to the beats in the background.
  • Wear a headwrap or hat every day. This is a gesture to remind myself I need to take care of my brain and what I put into it. It’s a physical comfort and also a nudge to think when I’m consuming media – Is this what I want to be seeing/hearing right now? Is the volume where it needs to be? Plus, it eliminates the need to do my hair, which is in an awkward phase.
  • Watch a kid’s movie with my spouse after the kids are in bed. (We watched the Addams Family movie. We looked for a comedy in grown up movies that looked appealing, was rated PG-13, and did NOT have someone cheating in the trailer, and found nothing. I realized about halfway through the digitally animated creepy weirdness that I had FORGOTTEN about the coronavirus for a while, and that felt wonderful.)
  • Texting with friends

What have been your self care wins in the age of #coronapandemic? How are you thinking outside the box to stay healthy mentally and emotionally?

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2 Comments
  • Kathy Furniss says:

    Zoom conferencing with my family and students have definitely been highlights of this crazy week! Finishing the “Anne of Green Gables” series will be happening within a day or two. Boo! I can’t visit the library! and am not sure what my next read will be. Beginning each day with prayer, a cup of coffee, and my Bible definitely arms me for the day and makes everything else doable.

  • Laura G. says:

    It stinks to not have the library available. I’ve been using our library’s app to listen to audiobooks, but I don’t know what I’ll do if I finish up my paper book reads. Audio just isn’t the same. Morning meditation (which is my morning time with God) def helps me start on the right foot.