People all over the world are spending most of their time at home in what can be described as semireclusion, or in some cases even total reclusion.
For most, the experience can be taxing. We’re used to go about our day, moving from place to place, seeing family and friends.
When our routine is disrupted it’s normal to feel boredom, anxiety, and loneliness. The following strategies will help you deal with these feelings so you can make the most of your time at home.
Create Structure
Staying at the same place all the time creates a sense of sameness. You can counter this sensation with structure. Dress for work even if you are working remotely. Set aside a specified amount of time for chores, to relax and to take care of yourself. Don’t let the different parts of your day blend together. Find ways to differentiate them.
Learn to Reframe
Reframing is a very powerful psychological tool. If you don’t know how to use it, this is a good time to learn. In a nutshell, reframing means shifting your perspective to adopt a more positive mindset. For example, if staying home makes you feel bored, don’t see it as a sacrifice, but as an act of kindness towards the people who are more vulnerable. By changing the way you think about things you can also change the way you feel about them.
Challenge Yourself
Depending on your daily routine, create challenges and try to beat them. If you work from home, challenge yourself to increase your productivity. When you exercise, try to do more reps that the day before or workout a little longer. If you are reading a book, try to read more pages than usual. When you set a challenge, you change your focus. You won’t be thinking about your own boredom because you will be busy trying to achieve your goal.
Create
There’s a certain kind of person who can spend hours, even days in the same place without feeling particularly bored or anxious. Those people are artists and their secret is creativity. You can take advantage of their strategies even if you don’t consider yourself an artistic person. Creating is another way of shifting your focus, and a very simple one, too. Get a pen, grab a piece of paper and write, or draw. It can be a poem, a diary, or a funny sketch. That’s the beauty of creation: Anything is possible even in the moments when the possibilities seem limited. Give creativity a try, and if strikes a chord with you, then you would have made the most of the lockdown.