Lockdown Coping Tips I’ve Learned Since 2020

For those of you tuning from elsewhere, I’m from Victoria in Australia. As I write this intro, we’re starting for our 6th Lockdown, something we affectionately call a ‘Locky D’. Last year, we had two lockdowns, one of them spoken about with more horror than the other due to its length, the doom of watching the numbers grow, and no end being in sight. The 2021 flavour of lockdown is a short sharp ‘snappy D’, and while each one is different, they still seem to find a way into your soul like a cold breeze. This repeated experience has meant I’ve built some cool skills (sarcasm italics) for navigating the absolute grossness of lockdown so that I can come out the other side feeling a little more resilient and whole. These are my best tips. I hope even one of them gives you a smidge of peace.

Break the social media cycle by deleting the apps off your phone.

You can put them back whenever you like. An hour later. A day later. I found that the ever-present doom was sometimes too much when scrolling on The Socials. Deleting the apps meant I couldn’t even open them out of habit. 

Reconnect with your body to get out of your head.

This one is hard, but even a walk can help. Physically doing things, even though some days it took all the effort in the world, helped my thoughts stop spiralling and kept me grounded. It is totally normal to feel physically spent even though you have done nothing. Be gentle if you do something. Don’t expect to be able to do the same thing physically each day. Take it a day at a time.

Micro projects help pass the time while keeping you occupied in a healthy way.

Micro projects for me looked like: reading a book, doing a jigsaw, cooking something I normally wouldn’t have time to like a roast or jam, or even baking and icing biscuits. My latest is curating my wardrobe so that I have a fully photographed digital catalogue of my clothes. Maybe you could do this with your books or a record collection? Have you ever tried repairing or cleaning shoes? The smaller the project, the easier to achieve and the less likely you give up partway through feeling defeated. Count every step you get as the achievement it is.

Call someone and ignore them.

When working from home I had a workmate who would call me and we would sit, mostly ignoring each other, hanging out all day. Sometimes we would talk. Plenty of the time we wouldn’t. Being connected to another person, even without having any conversation, grounded me and kept loneliness or existential dread at bay. You don’t need to have a workmate to do this. I could do this with my sister while we both read a book. It can be the difference between going through it all alone or not.

Let Netflix suggest something.

When I’m experiencing depression or despair, I often struggle to make decisions. It can feel like I’m disconnected from knowing ‘what I want’ or ‘what I feel like’ at any moment. This can show in being unable to decide on anything to watch on Netflix. Well, Netflix now has a feature called ‘Play Something’. It predicts your taste and will randomly select shows you might like based on what it knows about what you watch and like. It reduces the decision-making challenge down to yes or next instead of a colourful buffet of show posters.

Know what self-care looks like.

Everything says ‘practice self-care’ but what the ever-loving fuck even is that? 

These are things that I found were a good basis for self-care.

Constructive thoughts. If you catch yourself saying things to yourself that involve the word ‘should have’ then take a moment to see if you are giving yourself unrealistic expectations. Living through a global pandemic (and international trauma situation) is not easy and has enough pressure of its own without you telling yourself that you haven’t met an unnecessary standard.

Hydrate if you can and reduce caffeine in the later afternoon. This is to help you sleep more restfully because sleep is our bodies best way of resting, restoring and resetting. During Lockdown 2.0 I found the stress made me extra tired and I sometimes needed afternoon naps.

Give yourself little routines. The best basic routine I found was: get out of bed, shower, eat, take a little walk, wait to go back to bed once it is dark.

Look after your mobility. You may find you have the capacity for exercise. Be kind to yourself if you don’t. I found the most basic physical self-care I could give myself was something called ‘movement snacks’. These were movements through my mobility, things that used or stretched my hips and legs, kept my shoulders and neck mobile. Things like yoga and tai-chi fit into this category. A movement snack might take one minute to complete.

Have you considered Vitamin D? I’ve had a Vitamin D deficiency before and it is quite shit. It can show up as fatigue, muscle aches and pains, depression. Vitamin D is important for the strength of your immune system and it also helps your muscles hold onto calcium, which they need in order to contract. Do a Google to find out more, but taking Vitamin D is super safe, hard to overdose on and easy peasy. They’re like little tablets of pure sunshine. You may not even realise you’re deficient if you’re suddenly inside a lot more. 

Watch your booze.

Not everyone drinks, but if you do, plenty of people had a moment in lockdown where they suddenly realised just how many bottles of wine they needed to recycle. If you like booze it’s delicious, it’s accessible, you don’t have to drive anywhere because you’re locked down, it’s a fun way to let your hair down. In a lockdown environment, how much booze you drink and how often you drink can increase very quickly before you realise your habits have changed. At the end of the week, try looking at the bottles or cans of what you have consumed and pay attention to the volume. Is it higher than usual? Are you creating a new routine where you drink more? Moderation is key so have boundaries in place for yourself like dry nights or certain days you drink on. Be accountable if you step over those boundaries.

Finally, navigating hopelessness and despair.

This one is tough.

If you feel like lockdown will never end or repeated lockdowns are a forever thing, this can get you. 

Ways I have noticed this appear in my life are through things like, an inability to hope for the future, hoping for small things and then being devastated when they can’t come to pass, feeling unmotivated about previously exciting future goals because nothing feels like it is progressing or even can progress.

This one has been a complicated thing to navigate. These are things I’ve found helpful:

• Know who you were before all this started. I know how happy, kind, quick to laugh, raucous, and fun I am, even if I haven’t felt like that for a while. Importantly, I didn’t need to remind myself of that to picture getting back to it one day. When feeling hopelessness, that’s not even something I could picture. What I can know from it is that THIS feeling of hopelessness and constant sadness is NOT who I am. In knowing that, I know it will pass. I am not these circumstances, I am just responding to them. This is a normal human response to abnormal and difficult circumstances.

• Be observant about the differences between you then and now. For example “I notice I find it hard to even get excited about a new movie I would have previously liked”. What are the contents of your daydreams and is there a theme you can pick out amongst them that seems to be preoccupying you? Are you still able to daydream?  Noticing these things instead of living them blindly frees you from the cycle of them a little more and helps affirm that it’s not who you are long-term.

• The balm for hopelessness is love. Connection with friends, family, neighbours can make all the difference. A nice note. A phone call. A human moment. It helps you feel human and real and makes those moments worth living.

• Food. When it is incredibly hard to look forward to things, looking forward to the next bite is a physical and automatic response that can help your body remember what it is to look forward to something. Gifting tasty food matters. Making tasty food matters. Enjoying food is an act of rebellion from terrible circumstances and experiences. Humans have known this for hundreds of years. Nourish your soul with it.

Wherever you are, I hope that something somewhere in here gave you another tool for you to wade through the abnormality of lockdown more whole!

And now here are some pics from some sweet blog photos I took with Sophie mere hours before Locky D6 was announced.

Mask: Behida Dolic (I have mask 1 design with elastic and love it)

Top: Princess Highway

Skirt: Myer

Shoes: Siren

Mask is still available but all the others you’ll have to hope for on eBay or something.

I get untold joy looking at the soft squish of belly that pokes out between my top and skirt. So soft and happy looking.

– L

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