Creating a Peaceful Routine
In Ireland, the stay at home restrictions have been extended for a bit longer. Everyone has different living situations right now; some have children, some are working from home, others are living with family or partners or alone. Please bear in mind, I’m working from home 9-5 on week days and have no children, but am living with my long-term partner.
That being said, here are just a few things that have worked for me, personally, during this time to help keep up my mental health for the long haul.
Routine
Create routines for yourselves to help give structure to the day.
It’s also been a great time to start routines. For me, this has been most important in the mornings. I’m by no means getting fully done up every day, but I do start my days with a shower, just as I did before quarantine. Then I move through my skincare routine, oral hygiene routine, and take out my vitamins for the day, which I sort out into groups to take with each meal.
I brush through my hair and get fully dressed (for me this also means putting a bra on and contacts in. Not comfy as can be, but it helps give me the mindset that it’s time to go to work, not time to lounge) and then I make my bed and tidy the room. Finally, I put the clean dishes from the previous night away and wash any that are left in the sink.
I follow this routine every single morning. It helps set me up for a productive day, and it passes a bit of time! But mostly, it makes me feel a lot more human.
Separate Weekdays and Weekends
I’m really lucky in that I have an automatic separation of time while working from home. However, in my own personal routines, I try to give structure to time by having weekend-only activities. Maybe this means that you only drink, or bake, or watch TV on the weekends.
For me, it looks like watering my plans on a Saturday or Sunday morning, taking time to wash my hair or shave my legs, doing a face mask, or taking time for hobbies like baking, painting, or blogging.
Move Your Body
In whatever way works best for you. Any level or amount of time, but setting aside this time to purposefully move your body is more healthy than ever. It’s so easy to sit on the couch all day!
For me, this looks like 20-60 minutes of restorative yoga every day, which are mainly stretching poses, and maybe a few “runs” each week using a Couch to 5K app and running at an incredibly slow pace. Sometimes it’s even just a walk, or 5-10 minutes doing an exercise routine (HIIT, barre, pilates, etc). But regardless of what I do, it makes me feel so much better mentally.
Limit Device Use
(This pertains to me, not to people with kids!)
I get sucked in on my phone so easily, especially when it comes to social media. Before I know it, hours have passed and I don’t feel any better for it. To help stick to my routines, as well as limit my screen time, I’ve put in place time limits on most of my apps. I’ve set the times to block notifications and access from an hour before I typically go to bed to a half hour after I wake up. For apps I tend to get sucked into for the longest, like Instagram, I have a daily time limit set. Positive apps like my meditation app or Books I don’t put any limits on so if I want to read before I go to bed I can.
Separate Work and Home
As much as I love sleeping in, one of the most helpful things for me has been maintaining my mornings. I get up at least one hour before I have to start working to give myself time for my morning routines and to have some cushion before I open my laptop, rather than rolling out of bed and getting straight into emails.
The exception to this for me is to make sure that I take regular breaks from the screen, whether it’s making a cup of tea, walking around my apartment for a minute, or doing a chore that takes a minute or two, like a few dishes or a quick vacuum. Our days in the office are usually much more broken up between meetings, coffee breaks, and walking between floors, so I try to replicate this a bit at home to give my eyes and my mind time to rest.
At the end of the day, I try not to work too much overtime. It’s harder to “leave” work because you’re not trying to catch a train or get home to make dinner. But it’s better to have more separation between work and personal life right now.
Stay in Touch
This is something that I have to do on the regular since I live in a different country from most of my friends and family. But busy schedules and a 7-8 hour time difference usually get in the way of anything more than the odd text here and there. But I’ve really taken the time to reach out to people I normally don’t have the time to contact. I’ve been IMing, texting, video calling writing good old-fashioned snail mail letters. It’s been so refreshing to hear about what’s going on in people’s lives, and has given a bit of a distraction. Plus writing letters by hand takes time!
Quality Sleep
I’ve never been a good sleeper. But I do have a few things that help me out. The first is exercise - I always sleep better when I move my body. But I also have a bed time routine. I wash my face, do my nighttime skincare, and get into my PJs (I’m living in lounge clothes right now, so I'm trying to stick to PJs to signal to my brain that it’s time to unwind). I usually shower in the morning, but if I run after work and shower later in the day, I’ll use the Lush Sleepy body wash.
Once in bed, I light a candle (either a calming scent or a Woodwick candle for the sound) and do at least a 5 minute meditation using Insight Timer. I slather Lush’s Sleepy lotion on add a dab of lavender oil to my pillowcase. In dryer months, as we’re coming into, I have a humidifier set up next to my bed which helps me to not wake up to gulp water, cough, or because my nose/throat are too dry. I read for at least 10 minutes, more if I’m not feeling super sleepy yet.
I don’t love sleeping in absolute silence, which we tend to have here in the suburbs of Dublin, so I open up my Relax Melodies app and play whatever sound I’m in the mood for (they have a ton of free options from ocean sounds to crickets to white noise). I set a timer for the app to go off at whatever time I’m willing to wake up naturally in the morning before my alarm. This helps prevent me from checking my phone for the time constantly in the morning to make sure I’m not oversleeping. If I wake up and don’t hear the sounds, I know I can slowly wake up naturally rather than waiting for my alarm. This really has helped me avoid being too groggy or waking up too early from the light on my phone.
Bringing in the Big Guns
Before quarantine, I visited my therapist every Saturday. Without as much going on, and therefore less to talk about, I’ve been in touch over Skype/Zoom on an as-needed basis if I’m feeling anxious about staying inside or anything comes to mind to discuss. It’s a great way to support the people who need it right now, if possible, as well!
Variety
Lastly, and perhaps the one that’s been most helpful, has been adding a lot of variety to my day to day to help mentally stimulate myself and avoid letting each day blend into the next. I’ve tried new recipes, cleaned and organised different areas of the home, mixed up what hobbies I’m working on, and watched different shows to avoid a binging black hole.
What have you been doing that’s helped during this peculiar time? Leave suggestions in the comments below!