Everyone experiences a dip in mood at some point and many of us already have ways of managing it, whether we are aware of it or not. Some people reach for a few squares of chocolate, which triggers the release of endorphins. Others opt for some retail therapy while fitness junkies may double down on exercise.
Recently, I was speaking with a friend that’s a team leader in a fast growing tech company. We were talking about COVID-19 and working from home. Her team were desperate to get back in the office. Working from home had them feeling disconnected and overwhelmed. As a result, productivity was down. Completely changing our way of living has been disruptive and discombobulating for many, leaving people feeling anxious, lonely and stressed.
Loneliness and weak social connections are associated with a reduced lifespan similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day and even greater than that associated with obesity. Loneliness is also associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, and anxiety. At work, loneliness reduces task performance, limits creativity, and impairs other aspects of executive function such as reasoning and decision making.
As the world slowly re-awakens many of us will find ourselves in more high pressure situations than we had been in for a while. With or without COVID-19 in our lives pressure is unavoidable. It is an everyday part of life that we all have to deal with. Quite often we are experiencing pressure on a daily basis and often multiple times a day. For a long time we have lived lives where pressure comes at you from everywhere. Internal and external pressures placed on us along with being time poor are a recipe for overwhelm and for many people the cracks show in the form of poor mental and physical health outcomes, regardless of age.
People are already wanting to know when the isolation period will be eased as Australia successfully flattens the curve of reported COVID-19 cases. With no cure, no vaccine in sight and no herd immunity strategy on the table it is highly likely we will be in isolation for some time. No doubt this situation calls for a positive attitude and looking at this is a marathon and not a sprint.
We are now experiencing a period of what some are calling forced deglobalisation.
We can resist it, be stressed and overwhelmed by it, or we can choose to be in acceptance and work with, not against the circumstances.
The economic fallout is going to be enormous. Our governments are acting, whether you agree with those actions or not. Unlike the Great Depression, they are rolling out stimulus packages as this crisis unfolds. We can only hope they will soften the financial blow.
As a working mum with kids at home for the foreseeable future I think it’s fair to say we face challenging times ahead. Schools are closed. The government’s advice is to not have older relatives look after kids to avoid the spread of coronavirus. Child care options are quickly disappearing and so the support that we previously had leaned into to make our lives work are disappearing.
In this day and age of coffee worship, being stressed out by our lifestyles, working long hours and swiping through our Instagram and facebook feeds just before going to sleep, we are facing a sleep debt epidemic. We are doing ourselves no favours by failing to get the the right amount of good quality sleep.
