I've been shielding since the last week of March and I never could have imagined that in 2020 my life would revolve around my house for 18 weeks! It's been an utterly crazy time and things were changing on a weekly basis.
For a large percentage of those 18 weeks, I feel like my Instagram was just filled with people baking, re-creating TikTok dance videos and creating their own home gym studios. At the beginning I didn't see a whole lot of people talking about how the lockdown was affecting their mental health and I started to compare how unproductive my day was going to how other people were spending their days. As a result I spent a fair amount of time unmotivated and spending my day in pj's just watching Netflix and cuddling with the puppy which I have no doubt she loved. Don't get me wrong, when I found out that I was going to be off work for 3 months, I had so many plans to be so productive and get so much done on my blog, I wanted to restart my YouTube channel and I wanted to completely re-arrange my bedroom. I think it started going down for me when I started listening to my little anxious voices that made me feel like I should be coming out of shielding like a new women and I shouldn't have ever listened to those voices!
It took me being honest with myself, talking to some of my best friends and getting rid of some of the negativity in my life for me to pull myself out of the anxious black hole I seemed to have fallen into. Doing what I do for work, I am so protective over my own mental health as my work can be so emotionally draining so I have to make sure I practice some self-care and look after myself. I thought I would share with you all some of the things that I found helped me right my path and help me feel like myself again.
Looking after number one ~ I took a long hard look at my life and relationships and I decided to cut out the negativity in my life and relationships that were all one sided. Putting myself first has really helped to calm my anxiety. I felt lighter and not feeling so trapped in negativity.
Pacing myself ~ I remember back when I first felt like I needed to get back to 'normal', I completely overwhelmed my weekly plan and I just looked at it and felt completely unmotivated. I started making myself a weekly list of my top 10 things I want to get done that week instead of planning out my days, this made me feel like I wasn't putting as much pressure on myself so if I had one day where I needed a day where I just had a bubble bath, watched Netflix and walked the dog then I could do that without making myself feel completely awful for taking time out for myself.
Having a little routine ~ Being off for 4 months I realised that if I don't have a little bit of routine to my weekdays, I end up wasting far too time watching YouTube videos and playing animal crossing. It wasn't a huge big thing but it was simply getting up at a consistent time, making my bed, doing my morning skincare routine and having breakfast every day. It doesn't look like a whole lot but it was just some consistency to my day and it really helped me.
Being honest & talking to friends ~ I have never really talked about my anxiety or my mental health because I always worried about burdening someone else however I have an amazing group of friends who helped me realise that the anxious thoughts I was having weren't something that everyone suffers from and they were a great ear and allowed me to express my feelings and help me rationalise those thoughts. I can't stress how important it is to have your little support network, having someone or a group of people that you can talk to and feel supported with is so important.
Having a proper sleep routine ~ My sleep routine has cycled through probably every sleep pattern you can think of during shielding. I started off going to bed really early and getting a good nights sleep and waking up naturally before 8am to going to bed at 3am and still waking up naturally at 8/9am. No matter what time I went to sleep I still woke up between 8-10am so I found having a proper sleep routine helped. I made sure that everyday I was going to bed between 9-11pm and getting up between 7-9am, I also tried to make sure that I wasn't napping during the day which was incredibly hard as I'm undergoing changes to the treatment of my B12 deficiency so I feel like I'm running on fumes at the moment.
Thinking about what I put in my body ~ Something I realised during shielding was that at times I wasn't thinking about what I put into my body and sometimes just eating because I was bored whilst watching Netflix. Over the past month, I've been making more of an effort to think about what I put into my body as fuel. I've not been putting anything as off limits or bad, I've just been practising moderation and eating things I enjoy, practising intuitive eating and getting more activity into my day. Making these small changes has really helped me feel better and with my energy levels and how sluggish I felt during the day.
I know that once this shielding finishes at the weekend, it's going to be a slow and steady journey and it'll be a nervous couple of weeks as I get to go out but I'm exciting to get some normality into my life.
How are you all getting on post-lockdown?
Speak to you next time!