How to escape coronavirus anxiety: Expert on how to survive self-isolation
19 March 2020, 13:35 | Updated: 20 March 2020, 12:48
Being forced to self-isolate because of coronavirus is going to be difficult for a lot of people. An expert told James O'Brien how to maintain your mental health while staying at home.
Paula is a cognitive behaviour therapist and called LBC to give some tips on the things that we can do to reduce worry during the coronavirus outbreak.
Keep a regular routine
"The first thing that people will struggle with is getting out of a normal routine. That is one of the things that can make us very vulnerable to our moods deteriorating. It's important if you're working from home or looking after kids at home to have a routine.
"So whether that's having set times that you do things, getting up and dressed or doing tasks around the house, have a plan, because that's what keeps us going in our normal day-to-day lives."
How to deal with worry
"The other thing that stands out to me is the anxiety that people are dealing with.
"One thing that helps me and I do with my clients. When worry comes up, thinking about what sort of worry it is. Is it something that's happening right now and you can tangibly get hold of and do something about? Think about the steps you would go through to resolve that problem.
The other type of worry is about things that haven't happened yet, but might. What we try to do is to work the same way with those as we do with problems - but we can't problem-solve things that haven't happened yet.
"This is something that is out of our control and we need to wait for more information before we can do anything about it."
Listen to her full call at the top of the page.
