Self-care: The Best Answer for What to Do in Isolation

The Importance of Self-Care in Isolation

Fun: An Essential Self-Care Activity

Personal and Professional Impacts of COVID-19

Essential self-care practices

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The Importance of Self-care in Isolation

As a society, we’ve been practicing social distancing for about eight weeks now.  How are you holding up?

Social distancing and isolation have been hard for so many reasons. We’re designed to be in community with one another. Humans need human contact. The consequences of stress and loneliness can be deadly.

Taking care of yourself, extending grace to yourself, and acknowledging that what we are going through is very difficult are essential practices for getting through this crisis. Self-care may look different for each of us depending on our circumstances and our needs. I’ve come up with three essential self-care practices I do each day to ensure that I can be the best possible version of myself – for both myself and my family.

The best any of us can do right now is to extend whatever help we can to each other. And also to understand that even though we are all going through the same thing, we are all experiencing it in different ways. For me, the stay at home orders can be hard for different reasons on different days (more on this below). Other days I see a silver lining and being forced to stay at home feels like a gift. And while Georgia has recently “reopened” things are so different now. I’d honestly prefer to stay home until the six-foot distancing stickers on the floors are gone and everyone stops wearing masks. I’m afraid that may not be happening until the end of the year, maybe longer.

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Fun: An Essential Self-care Activity

Last weekend I was really craving some fun. It felt essential and like if I didn’t leave the house and do something really fun, I was literally going to lose my mind. So we did it – me, my husband, and our toddler left the house…twice for no other purpose than to go out as a family and enjoy ourselves. Which I’ve got to say felt really good after intentionally staying home and only leaving the house for essentials for such a long time.

We found some really cute family-friendly activities which I’m sharing below that were conducive to social distancing and gave us a much-needed break in the weekend routine we’ve adapted to since the social distancing situation began. Bonus: these activities supported other small businesses!

Fun social-distancing activities:

1. Warbington Farms

For our locals, this farm is located in Cumming.  They are hosting drive-through events that are super affordable.

You literally drive through their farm and feed the animals from your car. We fed cows, a bunny, and some goats. Our toddler’s excitement and anticipation made the drive from Woodstock to Cumming worth it.

The fresh air and change of scenery were really nice. Also, if you order ahead of time, you can pick up strawberries and ice cream on your way out of the farm.

We have no affiliations with this farm.

2. Downtown Woodstock

I will say, if you drive through downtown Woodstock at first glance it looks crowded and like people aren’t practicing social distancing.

However, after actually being there and really watching people, I’ve got to say that everyone was doing a great job of being responsible.

The businesses did a great job of keeping patrons six feet apart and all employees were wearing masks and gloves. Curbside pick up is also available at several restaurants downtown. You also aren’t allowed to gather in a group of more than six people at tables.

Patrons were also being mindful of the new rules and keeping respectful distances from each other.

We grabbed drinks and dinner to go and ate outside on a curb by the parking lot to be sure we weren’t too close to anyone else. Then we walked to an ice cream shop and enjoyed a cup of chocolate ice cream. The weather was amazing and this outing was just what we needed.

 

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Personal and Professional Impacts of COVID-19

I mentioned this before, but what makes this situation so unique is that we are all going through different versions of the same situation. Here’s how I’ve been impacted both personally and professionally.

• We’ve had to move all of our practice fully online (we were already set up for that since we do virtual appointments so it wasn’t a huge change. However, I do miss meeting with people in person.
  • The hardest for me is that we just signed (literally on February 28th) a lease on a new office space that we can’t really use now. We are literally halfway moved in. It’s full of unpacked boxes and I honestly can’t even remember what’s in the boxes or what I bought for the new space. So I guess unpacking when I finally am able to move in will be pretty fun!
• My husband and I have pretty much adjusted to working from home with a toddler. I’ll share more on this below and how we’re coping. It’s much calmer now, but in the beginning it was a lot like playing hot potato, and the toddler was the potato!
• Not being able to really go anywhere other than out for necessities is really challenging for me. First world problem for sure, but the self-care I normally practice involves seeing other practitioners and going to the gym. Normally I take a day or two each month and see my chiropractor, physical therapist, osteopath, visit our local nail salon and when I’m really lucky I might even squeeze in a facial.
• I need downtime and to be alone to fully recharge. This has been non-existent minus a few minutes in the car when running essential errands.

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Essential self-care practices

Like everyone else, I’ve been developing skills to cope with the current situation. I’m sharing my self-care essentials and what’s worked well for us over the past eight weeks in hopes it might be helpful for you as well!

• Keep a routine – even if it’s a loose one. For example, at our house, our day is broken up into activities – each day looks a little different, but we do have a basic structure we follow:
  • 10:00am/11:00am  – my personal exercise time
    • Our toddler typically wakes up around 8:30 so we have plenty of time to eat, get out the door and I can usually sneak in a load of laundry and pick up upstairs if I distract him with an iPad
  • 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm – I work while my husband takes his lunch break with our toddler.
  • 1:00 – 2:00 – a quick kitchen clean up and dinner prep
    • This allows us to be able to play outside until it’s time to put dinner in the oven
  • 2:00 – 5:30/6:00 – outside time or essential errands
    • Usually, this means a bike ride for our toddler (the deal is momma exercises in the morning and in the afternoon it’s his turn to exercise), we also end up working and playing in our yard a lot – it’s our Spring/Summer project this year.

• • • • Also, in hopes of helping others juggling kids and work at home, here’s the work from home schedule that we came up with:
        

         

        • Note: If we followed it as is we wouldn’t have any time together as a family. So we keep it loose, we usually eat dinner together and try to spend time with all of us together on the weekends.
          • My husband has pretty much kept his regular hours (8:00-5:00) and now spends his lunch break with our toddler so I can work 12:00 – 1:00.
          • I try to get up and get some work done before our toddler wakes up for the day. I work most evenings 7:30 – 9:30/10:00, sometimes later. So my husband usually handles dinner/bath/bedtime with our little one.
          • I also work full days on Saturday and Sunday, my husband spends these two days with our toddler.

• Don’t feel bad putting yourself first
  • My hour of exercise in the morning isn’t negotiable and my toddler knows it. He can actually tell you that “exercise makes you healthy and strong” and “if Momma doesn’t exercise in the morning, she’s grumpy.” At least he’s learned something since daycare has closed!

He climbs into his stroller with a popsicle, I grab the dog and we walk our neighborhood for an hour. He willingly cooperates because he knows his turn to exercise is coming in the afternoon and he enjoys his popsicle and ride in the stroller. We spend the hour chatting, catching up with neighbors we see, listening to music, FaceTiming, and sometimes we even remember to catch up on Marco Polo. Sometimes if I need to, I’ll make work calls as we stroll. The social aspect of the walk is really helpful for me.

• Set your expectations low, and I mean really low
  • This protects you from getting overly stressed if you don’t accomplish everything you want to during the day. It also sets you up for success. In a weight management class I used to teach we would tell participants to “set your goal so low that you have no choice but to be successful.” This sets you up for success and being successful increases your belief in yourself which ultimately increases your self-confidence.

Hopefully, these tips have been helpful!

If you have anything you’ve adopted that’s helped you during the COVID crisis, please share in the comments below!