How to look after yourself if home alone with Covid

For many of us, catching COVID and isolating at home can be a distressing experience. For those with a preexisting mental illness, it can be even more difficult.

The following strategies are designed to help you look after your mental health if you get COVID and are isolating at home.

● Manage fever and other symptoms like aches, pains and sore throat with paracetamol or ibuprofen.

● Maintain a healthy diet

● Keep your fluid intake up, particularly if you have a fever

● Stop exercise for at least 10 days, and depending on the severity of your symptoms, return to exercise slowly (ask your GP for advice)

● Practice deep breathing, which can help lung function and help you stay calm during isolation and recovery. But this should be done in consultation with your doctor

● Practise mindfulness to help cope with the inevitable anxiety around illness and isolation

● Find distractions like reading, watching movies or doing a creative activity, which can help keep your brain from fixating on worry (this is particularly important for children)

● And stay connected with friends and family, online or over the phone.

It’s important to monitor your COVID symptoms.

WHAT TO AVOID

During times of anxiety and uncertainty, such as isolating at home with COVID, people may turn to drugs and alcohol, unhealthy eating, gambling, or other addictions to manage psychological discomfort.

These strategies may temporarily alleviate stress. But they can cause more mental health issues in the longer term.

It's also important to avoid “doom scrolling”, which is the tendency to continue to scroll through bad news on your mobile phone, even though the news is saddening, disheartening or depressing.

(PTI)