Guide to fighting anxiety in quarantine

Markus Bardenhagen

I think it’s safe to say 2020 has been an absolute shitshow. With covid-19, bushfires and human rights abuses around the world and the fast-approaching exams at uni, the world can be a pretty scary place right now. On some days, it’s hard to focus on anything but anxiety, and I am just writing this to tell you that’s okay.

At the risk of sounding cliché, there’s no one way to fight anxiety — we all have our own coping mechanisms and just because something works for me doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll does the trick for you too. The bottom line, however, is that it’s more important than ever to take care of yourself in 2020. I’ve listed below a few easy steps to fighting anxiety in quarantine — hopefully they’d make you feel a little better today :)

1.  Be mindful in quarantine

Try creating a schedule for the next day every night before you go to bed. Include a wake up time and allocate time for different activities/tasks throughout your day. Make sure you schedule some outside time as well! Of course, the pandemic is not over, but as long as you can maintain a safe distance from others, taking a walk along the lake, feeling the gentle breeze and listening to the birds chirp can really help you relax and be mindful during quarantine! Scheduling your days out really helps to fight monotony and makes your day seems a little more normal. Additionally, I’ve always found writing things down very helpful in organising my day, addressing my worries and so on. It helps me to sort out my thoughts and identify which thoughts are actually logical and which ones are just my anxiety talking.

2.  Remember to love yourself

This is just a daily reminder, but I love myself because __________ (fill in the blank).

3.  Be honest with yourself and others

When someone asks you if you’re okay, it’s absolutely fine to say no you’re not. We check in on our friends and family members from time to time precisely because we want to know what’s up with them and that if anything’s not right, we’re there to help and support them.

2020 is, to say at least, an interesting year and it’s more important than ever to be honest with ourselves and others, just so we can support each other through this incredibly difficult time. Personally, I have two really close friends and we’d get together every Friday just to rant about literally everything in quarantine, from getting called on in online tutes to feeling sick of getting the same type of coffee at home every day. Of course, this is not to say what’s wrong is anyone’s business, but that sometimes being able to be honest with yourself and others can be comforting and that, if you haven’t been feeling too rad lately in quarantine, there’s absolutely no need to smile through your anxiety.

Our minds have clever and persistent way of convincing us of something that’s not necessarily true. These inaccurate and distorted thoughts reinforce negative thinking and if we can recognise them, we can learn to challenge them.

Four very common thought distortions include (a) black-and-white thinking, whereby you see everything as one way or the other, with nothing in between; (b) personalising, especially when you assume you’re the one to be blamed when anything goes wrong; (c) filter thinking, whereby we choose to only see the negative side of a situation; and (d) catastrophising, when we unreasonably assume the worst possible outcome is always going to happen.

Whenever you have a distorted and negative thought, stop for a moment and evaluate whether it’s at all accurate. Try to imagine how you’d respond if your friends spoke of themselves that way — more likely than not, you’d think they’re being stupid and give them a really good rebuttal to their negative views. If you beloved friends should never think of themselves in such distorted and negative ways, then why should you?

5.  Try the 4-7-8 breathing exercise to feel more centred

Breathe in (1, 2, 3, 4). Hold it in (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). Breathe out (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). Repeat the breathing-cycle until it calms your mind and your body! 

6.  A final reminder: you are enough and are stronger than you think. You are smart and capable AF. Your now is not your forever.

Enjoy my favourite positive message from Donte Colley at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J8WIoexjxI&ab_channel=LovelyDe%27Anna. I hope you’re having an okay day :)

^ Look at this random picture I took when I was home in Hong Kong last year, maybe our world isn’t so scary after all?