Locked down with my mental health

As lockdown restrictions begin to ease, Heather Shore takes a look back at how quarantine has affected her mental health…

About two weeks before the UK went into lockdown, I wished that I could just give up all my responsibilities for a week. My timetable was jam-packed with lectures, seminars, placement, my part-time work, societies, exercise and I’d try to squeeze in a night out where possible.

As someone who has struggled with anxiety and depression in the past, my way of coping was to fill my days with things to do. I thrived off productivity, socialisation and keeping my mind busy. However, I had started to burn myself out and desperately needed a break or a retreat somewhere away from it all.

I actually booked myself a solo recharge trip to Barcelona for the Easter holidays. Little did I know, that on March 23rd, Boris Johnson would offer the United Kingdom a free stay at home retreat, in the form of Coronavirus lockdown.

My wish came true, and all my responsibilities ground to a halt. University switched to online lectures, which was a fraction of the contact hours I was used to. My part-time work and placement both shut down. Daily gym workouts were forbidden, and I was finally faced with a blank calendar.

Initially, I panicked. I struggled to comprehend how I would cope, as I read horror stories of lockdown lasting until winter. The idea of spending the foreseeable future rattling around in the same four walls terrified me. My mind was so used to being filled with new and exciting information.
Furthermore, being a university student 60 miles away from my hometown, I had to decide where I would spend the foreseeable future quickly. I come from a very small village in West Yorkshire. With barely anything to do at home and one local supermarket (which was kindly ram-raided and destroyed several months before lockdown) – I chose to stay in Nottingham.

Initially, I would wake up every morning to switch the breakfast news on and soak up the death figures, predictions and assumptions of our future. I’d spend the day refreshing various apps on my phone, looking for new information and new reactions to the pandemic.

Studying broadcast journalism at university, I felt the need to immerse myself into the statistics and stories of the pandemic. My life of lectures, nights out and societies quickly flipped into scrolling through updates, analysing graphs and sourcing my own hot news. I lapped up the content and started to obsess.

But eventually, I started to slow down. I realised that the anxiety-inducing over-load was doing me no favours. The daily briefings became a bit more boring. The constant conversations and fears of the future developed a Groundhog Day approach. I started to make small changes each day, to edge myself away from the hub of the drama.

Since my Barcelona getaway was nothing but an un-refunded mistake, I started to turn my daily life into a bit of a retreat. I began to appreciate the ability to do nothing and learned to listen to and deal with the anxiety-ridden thoughts that have owned my mental health for years.

Here are a few things that have helped me since leaving university:

• I go to bed before 10 pm, and wake up before 8 am. This may sound unobtainable for some people – but I was in a similar sleep/wake cycle before lockdown, and I didn’t want to throw this out of the window.

• I leave my phone in the kitchen before bed. This means I can’t sit and scroll through it before I fall asleep, and I don’t wake up to scroll through it either. This allows me to sleep and wake without constant intrusive pings or updates to keep my anxiety thriving.

• 30-day yoga classes on Youtube. I’ve never enjoyed home workouts because I give up straight away. But yoga is a really good way of getting in exercise in your own home. The 30-day challenges are the best because it gives you structure and accountability. I’m halfway through my second cycle, and I absolutely love doing it. I’ll usually do yoga straight away in the morning.

• Meditation. Before lockdown, I had the headspace app on my phone – but never touched it. I downloaded it and assumed that would suffice. However, I decided to use it about a month ago, when my anxiety and racing thoughts were at their worst. Miraculously – I loved it. I probably use headspace about three times a day now, and it has helped my anxiety in ways that I never thought were possible.

• Deleting social media. Now more than ever is a great time to go a week or so without social media. Let’s face it, you’re not going to miss out on anything other than throwback pictures or a Snapchat of a zoom call. I deleted Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter for ten days – and although it was a weird feeling at first, it allowed me to actually live my life without feeling the need to post it everywhere or compare it to other people’s lives.

Although lockdown has caused so much stress and worry for everyone, I am grateful for it. For me, lockdown has been the ultimate chance to rest and recharge. I’ve learned lessons about myself that I will take into the normal world (whenever we get that back), and I am thankful that I’ve had the chance to stop.

We are lucky to be healthy and safe from the illness. The lockdown has proven to me just how fortunate I am to have basic things like good health and a roof over my head.

Written by Heather Shore

Feature Image credit: Unsplash