When you’re going through something difficult, facing the unknown, feeling unprepared, and doing things you didn’t think you’d have to do, it’s easy and also a normal response to feel anxious, depressed, and even scared amidst the difficulty’s life can bring.
Considering everything going on in the world right now amidst COVID-19, here are some healthy and holistic ways to cultivate calm during difficult times while you quarantine yourself at home.
1. Set a schedule
It’s easy to feel like you’re being swept up and feeling out of control, especially when you have to react accordingly to the difficulties you’re facing. Take control of your life by setting a schedule and doing your best to follow it, within reason, making room for flexibility. Having a schedule helps to keep you on track of your day, your goals, your accomplishments, and it can give you better insight on what you’re lacking in daily life.
Setting and following a schedule also reminds you how much control you have in any given present moment, and regardless of the difficulties you’re facing, having a schedule helps you to realize that the point of power is always in the ‘now’ and you can choose how you act accordingly.
2. Eat anti-inflammatory foods
When stress, anxiety, and depression crop up, inflammation is sure to follow. All these negative emotions bring about higher levels of cortisol and adrenaline which, when there’s too much can cause our body to be inflamed.
The good news is, eating anti-inflammatory foods such as turmeric, fish oil and other antioxidant-rich foods, particularly fruits and vegetables, give your body the necessary antioxidants to combat inflammatory free-radicals as well as the vitamins and minerals your immune system needs to stay strong seeing as inflammation and negative moods tend to dampen our immune response.
Going beyond their physical benefits, eating anti-inflammatory foods are known as well to be mood regulating and can help us have a more positive outlook on life regardless of any difficulties you may be facing.
3. Prioritize Your Mental Immunity
Cultivating calm doesn’t mean ignoring what’s making you feel anxious, stressed, or depressed. In order to truly achieve an inner sense of calm you need to acknowledge these emotions and work through them. Some emotions can clear out by simply venting it out, be it through journal writing, exercising, or calling a loved one.
More deep seated negative emotional states don’t mean you have to go through it alone, especially while you’re in quarantine. If need be, seek professional care. Therapy can be done through a digital call, whether it’s with a professional or somebody you trust.
Prioritize your mental immunity to keep you strong, emotionally resilient, and generally happy. Instead of letting your fear and anxiety get a hold of you, being on quarantine is the perfect opportunity to work on your mental health, however way works for you.
4. Cut out anxiety triggers
While you’re on quarantine, take some time to reassess your digital exposure and ‘Marie Kondo’ your social, news, and information feeds.
Often times, out of context headlines, fake news, and fear mongers can unnecessarily exacerbate our already existing, and valid fear. An easy solution to this is to simply cut it out. Delete, unfollow, mark as irrelevant etc. and reserve your digital exposure only for truthful and relevant content that serves your mental wellbeing. This isn’t to say of course that you should ignore the news, but to simply cut out the ingenuine information out there that’s doing you harm.
5. Be mindful of ‘true’ and ‘false’ anxiety
As touched on earlier, anxiety and other negative emotions can crop up from eating poorly and not caring for our mental health. Take some time to be more mindful if you’re really feeling low, or if you’re making yourself feel low.
Making yourself feel negative emotions is often unintentional and a result of passive choices. Lack of exercise, lack of sunshine, too much caffeine, bad diet, low blood sugar, and too much screen time especially before bed, and lack of quality sleep can all bring about unnecessary feelings of anxiety, stress and depression. While being at home on quarantine does take adjustment in your day to day life, take some time to see if you have any anxiety-triggering passive habits that you do throughout the day. Feeling better may simply mean having your cup of coffee earlier in the day and farther from bedtime even just 5 minutes under the sun.
Whereas genuine anxiety and depression is concerned, read back on number 3, concerning taking care of your mental immunity.
Keep calm and supplement. Try our Calm Anti-Anxiety Supplement to help you get through even the most difficult days. Made with immune-boosting Ashwagandha, calming lemon balm, anti-inflammatory Passion Flower, and clarifying and relaxing L-Theanine, this supplement’s synergistic blend of well-known calming components can help keep your mind and emotions centered.
