How to improve your life while self isolated

One of the important things to do during this period of confinement is to practice regular physical exercise, among other things, to keep a healthy lifestyle. If social distancing is required, it is authorized to workout at home, using just your bodyweight to stay in shape. The reason is, staying inactive can have consequences on our physical and mental health. So, how to improve your life while self isolated?

How to improve your life while self isolated?

1. To positively be alone, you have to get along with yourself

Four days and four nights in a country house without a mobile phone, television, radio, even pets, or people. This is the regimen that Hervé Magnin used to be able to reflect realistically on solitude and deliver his impressions about it in La Positive Solitude. “I was planning to get out of the world longer in order to write this book which was originally an order from my publisher. In the end, four days were enough. “Loneliness is conducive to creativity and to a certain efficiency” says the psychotherapist.

Pointing out the difference between isolation, which would be for him the suffered version of loneliness and the faculty of being alone without instantly feeling sadness or anxiety.

To achieve this state of positivity, you have to have a certain self-esteem. You have to get along with yourself, be satisfied with your own company. Of course, it’s not always easy, it can require working on yourself. You have to have an indulgent and benevolent look at your loneliness. Work to accept (because we don’t know how long it will last) this time of self isolation.

2. Communicate with loved ones

Because of the many options that exist, these days of isolation open up the opportunity to contact the people who matter to us, whether by phone or with a video calling app.

In addition to talking with the family, it is important to communicate how we feel with our loved ones. We are not afraid to say what we feel.

Crisis situations such as pandemics are an opportunity to strengthen social ties with the people who are important to us.

It is important to talk to people, but also to listen to them. Thus, if you are confined to the house with loved ones, this is an opportunity to spend quality time with them.

3. Optimism and virtual contacts are key

Among prisoners of the Vietnam War, confined in tiny cages, sometimes almost filled with water, optimism was the main predictor of better psychological health in the long term, according to a 2015 study. “Optimism is a significant predictor of positive physical and psychological health, and also provides long-term protective benefits,” conclude its authors. It won’t be as easy for everyone, because loneliness has an important genetic component. The heritability of loneliness would be comparable to that of depression. You don’t inherit loneliness, but the pain you feel from being alone.

Thus, even if they are not as beneficial as real contacts, SMS, e-mails and applications like Skype and FaceTime are infinitely better than the total absence of interaction. We can use them without moderation for the benefit of the elderly people around us; they are particularly vulnerable to social isolation.

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