One Tip to Keep Some Calm Right Now

This is a weird time. It simultaneously feels like so much is happening, yet nothing is happening. I’m constantly caught between feeling like I should panic or that I should stay calm. Staying at home is the best thing I can do, but it also feels like I’m doing nothing to help the situation. 

And I’m one of the lucky ones. My job has gone remote but my income levels are exactly the same. I have a nice apartment to be sheltered in and can afford all the normal foods and supplies I need. I am healthy and all my loved ones are healthy. And to top it off, I’m an introvert anyways so spending this much time alone is not really all that painful for me. 

There are a million ways to spend our time in quarantine and a million lists have already been released on this topic so I’m not going to repeat the same information yet again. 

What I would like to offer is one tip I’ve found useful for staying level during such uncertain times. 

Find an anchor. 

This is good advice in many situations, but especially in a situation like this with so many unknown variables. We need things to anchor us to a routine and to anchor us to a sense of calm. During a time like this, the most effective anchors could be things that did not have to change about your life from before ‘shelter-in-place’ times. This does not have to be something intense or outside your normal routine, it can be as easy as recognizing something you already do as your anchor. 

I have a couple anchors but the simplest one is my morning cup of coffee. I make coffee for myself every morning, and the process of putting it through the french press and drinking that first cup calms me down almost instantly (ironic since I’m making something caffeinated). It’s something I did before all this blew up and it’s something I’ll do after. I didn’t have to change anything about it. 

Another is my skincare routine. It was the same before all of this and it’s the same now. Washing my face and massaging on all my products at the end of the day resets my mind and tells my body that it’s time for bed even when I’m losing track of the days.

An anchor I used to have was the gym, but so much has had to change about my fitness routine that it is no longer an anchor, but another source of anxiety because I still haven’t found a way to be completely calm about working out in my home or outside all the time. So I don’t rely on it like I used to. Instead, I am trying to rely on all the things I didn’t have to change and find comfort in them. 

These are small wins in unprecedented times, but if you have even one part of your day that got to stay the same as before, I encourage you to relish it. Relish the unchanging nature of whatever habit was not affected by all this craziness. It can provide stability during periods of panic, and hope that things will one day be back to normal. 

If there’s anything specific you’d like me to write about during this time, whether it’s quarantine related or not, please let me know. I basically have killed my original blog line up because most of it just doesn’t seem relevant right now. I hope everyone is staying as safe as they can. 

From my last run on the Lake Michigan lakefront before they closed it down due to people not social distancing :(