Protecting Your Mental Health During A Pandemic

Today, I am delighted to introduce you to Chloë, from the blog Chlodoeslife.com, who has kindly provided a guest post offering these fantastic tips on protecting your mental health during a pandemic.

Protecting Your Mental Health During A Pandemic

It’s been nearly a year since the world was put on lockdown for the first time. Quite unbelievable that 11 months later we’re still in the same place as we were back then, if not worse.

Lockdown fatigue is setting in and more people than ever are feeling very discouraged, unmotivated and depressed. Since the end doesn’t seem to be near, I’d like to share with you my best tips for protecting your mental health during this pandemic.

Reduce Your Social Media Intake

This is oh so necessary to stay sane. There is a lot of fake news and exaggerations going around on social media, which is definitely not beneficial for your mental health.

By reducing your social media intake, you’ll notice you become calmer and less worried, as you’re no longer confronted with this fake news.

As a blogger, I find this very hard, because social media is a large part of my audience, especially Twitter. If I don’t tweet often enough, people aren’t reading my posts. Luckily, I’ve discovered the magic of content scheduling tools. This way you can still post online without actually being online. It has helped me reduce my social media time tremendously and I feel much more at ease.

Reduce Your News Intake

Similarly to reducing your social media, you should also be reducing your news intake. It’s important to know what’s going on in the world, but reading or watching the news once per day is more than enough.

Newspapers especially seem to be playing into peoples fears more and more, often exaggerating in their headlines. It’s simply not healthy and definitely not helpful either. If you want a more objective view on news, read a high-end newspaper, not the ones that are known for their more sensational writing style, like The Sun. I promise you, it will make you feel calmer and more informed.

Schedule Calls With Your Friends

Not being able to see your friends on a regular basis is hard, so it’s important to make use of all the tools you have to stay in touch. It might not be the same as meeting up in real life, but video calls really are the next best thing. This way, you can still see each other and talk as if you were sitting in the same room, the only thing you can’t do is give each other a hug.

Staying in touch with your friends will prevent you from becoming lonely, which ultimately will have a positive effect not only on your mental health but also on theirs. Try to schedule calls on a bi-weekly or monthly basis, or more often if you find the time.

Go Outside

This probably sounds like such a cliché, but it is true: fresh air can really work wonders. I know that the weather might not always be very inviting to go outside, but even if it’s only a five-minute walk around the block, it will make you feel a lot better.

The change in environment will help you wind down after a long day of working (at home) and will make you
feel refreshed for what’s to come. If it’s sunny out, you’ll be able to increase your vitamin D intake, which will automatically make you feel less tired too.

Go After Your Passion

I f there’s one thing I’ve learned from this pandemic, it’s that now is the right time to go afteryour passion. Want to start a blog? Open a business? Go for it. Life is too short to sit and wait for luck to come our way. Focusing on your passion will help distract you from everything else that’s going on in the world, which will ultimately make you feel happier. The more you focus on the things you love, the more you’ll forget about the madness we live in and the better you’ll feel.

Protecting your health in a global pandemic…

These are my tips on protecting your mental health in a global pandemic. They have worked really well for me and if you give them a chance, they can be really useful for you too.

Remember: this won’t last forever. Just a little longer, together we’ll get through this.

About the author:

When Chloë is not working her 9-5 in e-commerce, she’s dedicating her time to her blog, chlodoeslife.com. There she shares tips on blogging and work-life, as well as the occasional lifestyle bit too.

You can find her on Twitter and Facebook.

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