Three years ago, I’d been really, really, really sick for a WHOLE YEAR, I was not getting any better, and I was having to come to terms with having an incurable mystery illness, that I would potentially never recover from. It was a period of rapid, uncomfortable, painful readjustment of my life's expectations. The rug had been pulled from under my feet. A little bit like it has for everybody else now.
The coping strategies I learned back them are just as useful for Covid 19 now. I learned some myself through sudden or gradual insights, but mostly I learned from reading the writings of other chronically ill people, such as in this post:
Sick people may be physically vulnerable, but can have a lot to teach us all about resilience, joy, emotional strength, adaptation, grief and acceptance. Which is one reason I think we need to do all we can to stop the spread and flatten the curve, so they don’t all die and we’re only left with arrogantly healthy people. (NOT that all healthy people are arrogantly healthy, but I kinda was before CFS)
You’ve probably heard these a lot of these ideas before, maybe on annoying cheesy wellness memes, but hey, they got memed for a reason. Here's a list of coping strategies, that work for me.
- Do a mediate minimum once a day. You might be crap at it, but you sit there and you practice anyway. Start with an app if that helps. I use Insight Timer.
(https://slowtownsouvenirs.blogspot.com/2019/10/on-sitting.html)
- Go to the outside to the nature minimum once a day, to a leafy green or watery blue place, even if it’s raining. Get some of your body on the earth if you can. Feel some fresh air on your face. Notice the small things.
- Move your body, minimum one hour a day, even if it’s just your toes and hands or even just in your imagination. I do a yoga, or a qi gong or a wiggle around in the floor, or a very slow walk. There's lots of tutorials on youtube. (If I was healthy I would walk and ride my bike and swim, but there’s something to be said for really slow mindful movement too, which I have been forced into learning since CFS).
- Gratitude: three happy things, minimum once a day before bed. There is always something.
- Try replacing “I got to” with “I get to”.
- But you don’t need to be fake happy! Sad is OKAY. Fear is okay. Boredom and loneliness is okay. All the feelings is OK. Allow them, don’t fight them or try to stuff them away. Have a cup of tea with them. Lean into them. Find out about them. They might have some stuff to teach you.
- Excess of sugar is not yawww friend. A lower carb diet has been good for me.
- Have a laugh! Crack a funny. Dark humour if it’s safe. The world really is absurd.
- Awwww dogs, i wish I had a cute funny furry wet snozzled dog, even though they are gross and eat poo.
- Parasympathetic nervous system activation - deep, conscious breathing, noticing the pauses between the in and the out breath, singing, imaginary qigong for me.
- Limit the SOCIALs. (Wish I was better at this rule, I suck at this rule. I try have screen free Sundays, and ideally I’d fast 2 days a week, but so far I FAIL.)
- Yoga nidra and naps.
- Mindful hand wash breaks (this is a corona newbie. Washing your hands mindfully with soap and warm water is really nice!)
- “Don’t know” mind, to try stop panic thinking spirals of fears that you are probably just imagining. Like, hey is what I’m thinking actually true? How do I know that's it's true?
- “This too will pass”.
- One day at a time. One step at a time. Bring your focus back into the now, rather than imagined future panic. Touching your body, or noticing something physical around you can help disrupt the panic thought spirals.
- Star gaze or cloud gaze with feet on earth. Perspective.
- Don’t expect to “bounce back” from this. We are moving through this and growing from this. We will be different in the other side, and hopefully wiser and kinder.
- Just be nice to yourself. Treat yourself like you would a friend, don’t say mean things to yourself and forgive yourself when you are, inevitably, a bit of a donkey.
- Ask for help ya monkeys! Lots of people really love helping, and it would make them feel really good right now to help. (But they might need specifics). And on the flip side, if you’re doing okay but have lots of time, helping makes lots of people feel good, so maybe it’ll make you feel good too.
Many of these practices are easier said than done, and what works for you might be different to me (maybe thrash metal, primeval screaming and punching bags is your thing, I hope you can find a place to do this). I know I am lucky to have had a good mental health baseline, a home and a amazing supportive community around me, so it’s not necessarily all that easy. And I still get stupidly, unhelpfully stressed sometimes. I really need to remind myself this list too right now.
Here are some more links to previous blog posts of mine where the lessons I learned can also be applied to COVID19.
Here are some more links to previous blog posts of mine where the lessons I learned can also be applied to COVID19.
- Uncertainty
- A universal basic income
- Feeling multiple things at once
- The bravery of non doing
- Giving up hope (and fear)
- Feeling like you are in prison
- Non-fighting
- Equanimity
Please look after yourselves people, I hope this helps.
