Combatting Loneliness – An Excerpt from ‘Don’t Worry: Here’s How you Can Keep Your Mind Fit During Pandemic’
During an epidemic, loneliness can become a natural by-product of having to isolate yourself or physically distance yourself from others outside. This is particularly the case if you residing in a place other than your hometown or home country without your family or other flatmates. Being within the walls of your home, moving from one room to another, not having someone to share the space with or have conversations with is absolutely overwhelming and can certainly have a strong negative impact on your mental health. This is an aspect that needs to be addressed with promptness and a proactive approach must be incorporated to ensure loneliness does not grip you tightly during such a crisis.
Consider the following measures to combat the loneliness you may experience living on your own or around those with who you do not have great relationships.
1. Become mindful of your thoughts of loneliness: It is important to be aware of the fact that you do have thoughts that relate to feeling lonely in the space you find yourself currently. Accepting these thoughts and feelings is crucial to the process of being able to process them and work on changing your actions around them. It is also essential that you choose to recognise that you alone do not find yourself in this situation which will allow you to not feel further victimised and devastated at finding yourself in the situation that you currently are in.
2. Rely on your support system by reaching out to them regularly: Take charge of this situation in which you feel such immense loneliness by actively reaching out to others. If required make a schedule around it by fixing a time when you would call someone or exchange messages with them. In fact you can take it a step further and even decide in advance who would be the people you would choose to connect with during the course of the week beforehand so that you do not lose your enthusiasm and motivation to do so.
3. Invest in doing activities that you have not had the time for previously: Beat the loneliness you feel by changing the perspective to view the situation as also affording you some opportunity to be able to indulge in activities that you previously may not have had the time for. You may be restricted indoors or to a limited space as well as limited materials and equipment. Nevertheless you can easily discover something that you can indulge in during this time which would also help you distract yourself and pass your time more meaningfully.
4. Indulge in using virtual platforms to connect in a more personal manner: Do not wait for others to call you. Instead take charge yourself. Shift from using simple voice calling to video calling and also consider doing so as you go about doing some of your chores and other daily tasks. This is easily done with family members and close friends. You can also decide to mutually pursue the same activity at the time that you are connecting to be able to more actively engage with each other in discussions around it.
5. Focus on that which you can control: It is easy to get swayed in preoccupations with aspects of the situation you cannot control which can increase feelings of loneliness. Take a step back from reinforcing this aspect in your mind. Accept it as a reality and a fact. Instead focus on what you can realistically to do and which is under your control in this situation. Keeping a focus on this aspect would help deal with the feeling of loneliness that can become overwhelming and further discourage you from taking active steps and measures to ensure your well-being.
***
You have never been in this situation before! A pandemic which has forced most of us to stay indoors and making us feel as if we have no control on our lives. To maintain your well-being and your mental health, we have created this book which provides you an insight into the 8 critical aspects that you need to work consciously upon. Written by experts in the field, the tools will help you beat the blue of this forceful staying at home.
Read the book on Kindle today.
***