For various reasons, you may have to stay at home. However, you should realize that staying at home can affect your mental health negatively. Therefore, you should protect your mental health while staying at home with the following activities.
Create a routine for your daily activities
Let’s face it. Staying at home can cause a significant disruption in the way you used to do things. Consequently, you might become directionless and purposeless within a few weeks of staying at home. If this continues for a long time, your mental health may suffer significantly. Fortunately, you can deal with the problem by simply creating a daily routine, especially if you have to work from home.
Decide when you need to work, take a shower, brush your teeth, get dressed, cook and eat, use social media sparingly, listen to the news, clean your apartment and so on. Notably, if you have kids are home, a daily routine will be more difficult to follow. However, it is not impossible.
Also, break your routines down into short activities. Take enough breaks between the activities. All these will prevent you from getting bored easily.
Understand that staying at home can affect your mental health
The more prepared you are for mental health issues; the more likely you are going to cope with them. So, acknowledge the fact that you may be anxious, overwhelmed, frustrated, upset, unhappy, lonely, or upset about the things going on around you and the world as a whole while staying at home. Also, when you are having any of these emotional reactions, make sure you are fully aware of what is happening. However, you must always make sure that you combat these emotions with actions that can help you get over them.
Pay attention to your nutrition
Staying at home can make you feel too comfortable; thus, overlooking the essence of eating healthy meals. Avoid this by prioritizing healthy diets during this trying time. Don’t take foods that have high levels of saturated fats and sugar. Avoid carbonated drinks, alcohol or other drinks that can affect your health. Choose foods that contain lots of protein, vitamins, and minerals such as potassium. You need to stay healthy physically to also maintain mental wellbeing.
Make plans for your week with various activities
As a result of the need to stay at home, you may see no need for you to plan your week. Nevertheless, this can be detrimental to your mental health. So, make plans for your weekdays as well as weekends. Apart from work, take part in activities that can stimulate your mental wellbeing.
Engage your brain by embarking on new projects that can keep you busy in a positive way. Take new courses, learn a new language, paint your room, improve your culinary skills, and perform other interesting activities.
Maintain connection with other people
Loneliness is one of the common causes of mental health issues. Therefore, even if you cannot meet people in person, you should still find a way to maintain your connection with them. Thankfully, technological advancement has made things easy for us, so you have no excuse for not connecting with others.
You can stay in touch with people via phone calls, emails, and social media platforms. You can do video calls with people irrespective of their location or your restriction from going out. WhatsApp video calls, Skype and other platforms make this possible. Prioritize your family, friends, and colleagues among those that you will stay connected with. Ask them about how they are coping with life, what they have been up to, and so on.
Stay active
Do you have the opportunity to stay outside for a few minutes or hours? If yes, you should take advantage of the chance to see sunlight and just enjoy the external environment that you probably used to take for granted. Take your dog for a walk, run or walk around your neighborhood for a few minutes, and lots more.
Whether you are allowed to go outside or not, you can still perform some indoor exercises. Squats, situps, pushups, etc. can be done in the comfort of your home. Actively cleaning your home can also make you stay active. Get involved in your waste removal and use the opportunity to take your wastes outside.
You must remember that your lack of physical activity can cause mental health problems over time. Therefore, avoid physical inactivity.
Manage how you get an update on news
Nowadays, there is so much bad news on different media platforms. This can be overwhelming and cause panic; thus, adversely affecting your mental health. Therefore, it is paramount for you to limit the news that you listen to if you would like to protect your mental health. To stay up to date with the things happening around the world, don’t shun all news. However, you should limit yourself to news from reliable sources such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations (UN).
Focus on the positive things happening around you
A lot of mental health issues start when we only focus on the negative things that are happening. Don’t let the negative occurrences weigh you down. Think and focus on the positive things happening around you and let them inspire you to see a better and more fulfilling future.
Fight boredom with various engaging activities
Boredom has a way of impacting our mental health; hence, sending us into bouts of depression and other negative experiences. So, don’t allow staying at home to become boring and frustrating. Compile various activities that can help you fight boredom. Watching movies on Netflix and other platforms, playing with your kids or pets, playing indoor games, and engaging in a new hobby can help you fight boredom as you continue staying at home.
Ask for help
Sometimes, all other efforts that targeted are at protecting your mental health while staying at home may fail. However, asking for help can serve as your last resort at this juncture. Get peer support and talk with someone about what you are going through. Alternatively, get professional assistance in this difficult time. It should be noted that you can get professional help or peer support online.
In conclusion, staying at home can have debilitating effects on individuals’ mental health. Nevertheless, with the activities mentioned above, you can protect your mental health.