Human beings have an innate need to connect, and it is only natural to feel isolated and lonely as your routine is disrupted and you are told to practice social distancing or self-isolation.
I personally don’t like the terms “social distancing” and “self-isolation”. I much prefer to call it “physical distancing” and “physical isolation”.
The last thing you want to do right now is “socially distance” or “socially isolate”. It is so important to keep social connections and you can do this safely through physical distance, for example meeting friends outdoors for a walk, connecting over the phone, or through various internet applications.
Feeling lonely and isolated can have serious consequences for your physical and mental health. You may experience increased levels of anxiety, stress, and depression. Being out of your normal routine and spending more time by yourself often leads to unhelpful thoughts and ruminations around the situation you find yourself in.
Most people believe that it is their circumstances that make them feel a certain way. If that was true, then everyone in the same circumstances would feel the exact same way. But that is clearly not the case.
Circumstances are neutral, and only you can give meaning to circumstances by how you think and interpret them.To help you reduce your levels of anxiety, stress, loneliness, and depression, you can take a number of steps.
The first step is to explore what goes through your mind, how are you interpreting your circumstances at the time when you feel anxious, lonely, stressed, or depressed. At the moment it might be that you are worried about the future, your loved ones, or your health.
When you find yourself worrying, ask yourself what type of worrying you are doing.
Do you
Worrying about problems that need solutions right now and we can implement a plan to solve the problem.
Worry about hypothetical problems, or ‘what if….’ problems, imagining worst-case scenarios and catastrophising about things that are totally out of your control.
This will help you understand that there are situations that are out of your control and thinking about them constantly will not change the situation, but rather increase your feelings of worry, isolation, fear, and loneliness.
On the other hand, knowing that there are some problems that you can solve, gives you a sense of control. You can start focusing on the things that you can control and make plans for activities that will help you feel better.
This brings me to the second step to help you feel better.
Plan activities that you enjoy in your day. Think about activities you used to enjoy before life got too busy. Maybe you used to knit, grow vegetables, or do jigsaw puzzles, but haven’t done it for years? Take the time to try new recipes and cook with your family if you can. You also might look into how to connect with people through the internet. There are ever-increasing tools available, like Zoom, Skype, Facetime WhatsApp and others. If you have never used any of them before, maybe it’s a great opportunity now for you to learn about it.
Letting go of unhelpful thoughts, engaging in new activities and creating a new routine for yourself will very soon help you to feel better. You may not get rid of feeling, anxious, lonely and isolated completely, but that is OK. We are often so afraid of our feelings and don’t want to experience them, but once you accept your feelings and connect them to what is going through your mind at that time, you will find that its ok, feelings come, and they go again. They don’t stay with you all the time. This too will pass.
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