The last few months has seen our daily lives transformed beyond recognition. The impact of the Covid-19 outbreak has been fast and all-encompassing. From Beijing to Boston, businesses have been struggling to adapt to the circumstances that have been thrust upon them, and as a result, many workers have found themselves to be forced to work from home. We are all currently scaling a learning curve that involves Zoom meetings, VPN access and getting adequate back support from your dining room chair.
Your mental well being might not be a priority at the moment, but the reality is that without a mind that is at peace, it can be a struggle to bring everything else together. The purpose of today’s article is to give advice on how to manage and maintain your mental well-being whilst working at home through the Covid-19 crisis.
Stress Comes to Everyone
The first consideration we must address is the stress of the situation we find ourselves in. A global pandemic that is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands globally, coupled with a severe economic impact is something no one alive today is used to experiencing. It should come as no surprise to learn that levels of stress and anxiety around the crisis have peaked around the majority of people.
If there is any comfort to take in feeling stressed due to the current circumstances, it is that you are certainly not the only one. Luckily, there is support and techniques that you can use to relieve stress, even whilst sitting at your desk working from home. Take the time to look at breathing techniques and even forms of mini meditation to help you to improve your frame of mind when the news becomes too much.
Break Up Your Day
You might not notice it immediately but working from home can often lead to you spending more time at your desk, staring at your monitor than going to a place of work. Your average day in the office will be filled with meetings, coffee breaks and face to face social interactions with your colleagues. Research into concentration shows that the average person can give something their full concentration from between 15 and 30 minutes at a time.
In an office environment, you might naturally have breakers that would remove sustained periods of sitting at your desk. When you’re at a home office, however, it’s just you and the computer. This can feel particularly acute when you live alone. Keep your concentration sharp by giving yourself plenty of breaks to get a drink. Stand up from your desk a few times an hour and make sure you can some fresh air when you can. Overall, this will help your productivity and lower your stress levels.
Stick to the Advice
Keeping yourself educated in times like these is important, particularly when it comes to observing social distancing and lockdown rules. With 24-hour news coverage and social media, it can be easy to get sucked into a never-ending echo chamber of the devastation that Covid-19 has caused across the world. This can lead to increased levels of anxiety and might harm your overall productivity when working from home.
The best thing you can do is to stick to the advice that matters to you. Follow what the government is saying and use information from safety experts to guide your decision making from your time at home. Use meeting apps to keep some semblance of face to face contact with your colleagues and try to focus on your personal well being instead of how the world has been affected as a whole.
There are some challenging days ahead for all of us who are working from home, but with the right focus and an appropriate level of self-care, we will overcome this crisis together.