10 Tips To Protect Your Mental Health During Lockdown

Understandably, you may be worried about coronavirus (COVID-19) and the impact it will have on your life. As we’ve recently seen, this includes working from home and limited chances to venture outside. 

It’s OK to have these feelings. 

We would like to take this opportunity to give you some useful tips to help your mental health if you are feeling:

• Stressed 
• Worried
• Anxious 
• Uncertain 

This advice would also be useful for anyone who is currently working from home or self-isolating. 

Look after your mental health whilst working at home:

Working from home can seem like a daunting task, especially if you feel stressed by the change of environment and the possible distractions which come with it. If you are also new to your role, this may make you feel worried or uncertain. We’ve got some tips which will help to hopefully reduce stress and help put you at ease:

• Set up a work area: Find somewhere which is comfortable, quiet and offers minimal distractions. Make sure you can maintain a healthy posture, have access to natural light and fresh air.
• Look after yourself: Take regular breaks. If you feel stressed, stop, breathe, and give yourself some time to recharge. It may take some time to get used to working from home so don’t feel ashamed if you need time to adjust. 
• Communicate With Your Team And Manager: If you are struggling, speak up. They will be more than willing to help, whether it’s a chat to see how you are, help to complete your tasks, it’s important to work as a team.  
• Keep hydrated: Make sure you are drinking enough fluids, it is easy to forget when your mind is thinking of other things. 
• Try to set your own routine:  It may all seem strange at first, but once you have gotten used to working from home you will adapt to a routine that works for you. This will help to reduce stress once you feel more in control of your day to day activities. 

Looking after your mental health after work:

After work, it is important that we essentially “switch off” and unwind. Our brains need time to relax and reset. Sometimes it may seem difficult to do this, with work now seeming a lot more closer to you. 
Take a look at some of the below tips we’d recommend to help relieve stress once the working day is over.

• Keep in touch with your friends and family: We can still contact our loved ones, family and friends from home. You can use Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat… the list goes on. It is important to keep social. If you are worried about running out of things to talk about, you could talk about music, watch online clips together, or a book you have read. 
• Find something that relaxes you: This could be anything from a bubble bath, yoga, meditation, reading, listening to music…. Do something that helps distract you from the outside world. You are important, so always find the time to look after yourself.
• Keep Active: Try to build physical activity into your daily routine, this could be anything from dancing to some music, going on a run, or as simple as walking up and down the stairs! If you find it difficult to exercise, try to move at least once an hour and change position to help your posture and give some of your muscles a rest. 
• Don’t give up sunlight: Read a book in the garden, sit near a window. Keep your environment light and don’t sit in the dark. 
• Be creative: Do you have any DIY jobs you could start around the home that you never found time to do before? Maybe you could do some writing or artwork. Keeping your brain preoccupied on other things will make you less aware of what’s going on around you, therefore less anxious. 

Still feeling anxious? 
Please don’t suffer in silence, there is always someone to talk to. 

Create a checklist so you can see how prepared you actually are. This will help you highlight if there is anything you need to do to help take control of your mental health. Once you are fully able to recognise your own needs, this should help you be able to take control.