12 Tips to Surviving and Thriving Social Isolation

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is stressful for all of us. Fear and anxiety about a disease can be overwhelming and cause strong emotions in adults and children. Coping with stress will make you, the people you care about, and your community stronger. 12 Tips To Surviving And Thriving Social Isolation

Here are 12 Tips to Surviving and Thriving Social Isolation

1. Call at Least one friend a day.

First off have friends or family or at least people that you phone once a day. It will drive you crazy not hearing another’s voice or having a two way conversation.

Call grandma/grandpa, mom, dad, sister/brother, best friend and so on alternately and have a real conversation for half an hour an hour each day with someone at the end. ( it helps family/friends and bonds and will grow your relationship) -do not rely solely on who you live with for social interaction you will learn to hate each other from too much -for ways to have a conversations, talk about common interests, and then what they enjoy, find out why they enjoy these things.

Learn to actually debate, if they have an opposing view hear them out, argue about key points and just don’t be blind saying one thing without reasons. (When my gran was alive we’d argue on the phone for an hour about politics, or death penalty neither of us would win but we’d not leave angry)

2. Learn to enjoy your tasks.

Learn to meander on tasks, this will be hard for you industrious folks out there but every task can take hours if you go slow, always needing to get something else or get distracted.

(Turn a half hour job into multiple hour job).

Wash stuck on grime with dishes with only a cloth without a thick brush or steel wool. You have no we’re to be so keep busy. I cut firewood with a chainsaw and though I have an industrial splitter I use an axe.

3. Do what you have been putting off.

Make tasks for yourself, have you ever pulled out the fridge and cleaned behind it? Have you ever sponge washed the ceiling.

Well these task should be done anyway, how’s your time.

4. Read

Read a lot and things you enjoy, everyone has a book they always wanted to finish, lack of books in your house, try FanFiction.Net, Ao3. They’ve got home done fan fictions of stories.

Then there’s millions of news articles out there or read up and research skills of what you want to learn.

5. Teach yourself a new skill.

Teach yourself new skills, suck at art. Well here’s your shot at becoming an artist.

Rules of thumb are do stuff you might actually enjoy. ( Don’t always go the boring route, if you have a guitar, you don’t need to know how to do everything except learn the AC/DC song. Figure out the one song, your not perfect and they get paid to do it).

6. Plan your Future.

Start to plan your future, not just freaking out about being laid off all these things will end sooner or later and then you’ll deal with it in the future.

What’s your long term goal. -ex. You wanna own a restaurant?, a farm?, a log cabin?, or even say you wanna have kids. Become an expert in it. Read up on rules by-laws.

Resource packs become so knowledgeable and have such a plan that you can have a countdown clock from when you start working that you can count down till you have enough money to start.

7. Reach out to others.

Reach out across the world, there’s people stuck inside all over the place right now, start a correspondence with someone you feel that’s interesting there’s good Reddit’s for that, like r/R4R, r/penpal, r/seekingfriends, plus a whole host of applications.

True letter writing is a time consuming effort that will take a few hours to write, learn to actually format what you see in your life, make it interesting and be able to write to someone, Also finding there life interesting and asking questions.

8. Have a Routine.

Have routines, don’t watch television all the time. As I said do tasks, but if you like ex. blue bloods on thursdays or you watch television at this time. Keep to that routine.

Don’t make tv. Or your phone your only go to.

1) It causes restlessness.

2) It causes you to hate your relaxation time.

9. Unplug

Shut off your damn devices and go to bed at a reasonable time.

You’ll start getting pulled into staying up later and later till you sleep the day away and then you will get mad at yourself and then you’ll get depressed and start to spiral.

10. Stay busy.

Remember, right now you have all the time in the world so accomplish something, it need not be big but always do something.

The grocery stores are still supplying so eat like a king, cook like grandma or mom used to. -don’t eat too much sugars though, being wound up will get you just pissed off if you got nowhere to be.

11. Stay active.

Stay physical, stay active and just enjoy life. It’s the only one you got.

12. Podcasts are life.

Have talk radio or podcasts on for a couple hours each day, the voices will soothe you, you might learn something and they break up the monotony. I listen to Joe Rogan/hardcore history and various other podcasts throughout the day, don’t be afraid to shout back at them your alone, they don’t judge.

Read more about how to keep your mental health in check in this post.