Mental health during the pandemic is as much a factor as the virus itself. Find five ways to keep your mental health en vigueur in this marathon.

I remember how seeing the vaccine rollout commence in some countries made me feel impatient for life to restart. That was more than a year ago. Is this ever going to end? Like many of my clients, family, and friends, I am tired of this period. Tired of being indoors. Tired of constant gray days. Tired of coping with my mental health during lockdown. Tired of the uncertainty – still not being able to concretely plan for my life. But mostly I am tired of the increased isolation this pandemic has wrought. It’s lonely.

As the end of the tunnel gets closer-farther-closer-farther, my patience wanes even as my impatience grows, which increases my susceptibility to loneliness and boredom. I published a video on coping with loneliness almost two years ago in March 2020, but while the end of the tunnel may potentially be closer as the variants could become more prolific, but less deadly, in some ways this topic is even more critical now.

Two years ago, when we didn’t know if there would be a vaccine, we hadn’t been tolerating these conditions for as long, and in the uncertainty, many of us settled in for the long haul.  Now, we struggle to epidemiologically predict the next phase of the pandemic, it sets up a situation where just as you feel you are approaching the finish line, it’s suddenly moved back. This ever-shifting context in many ways makes it harder to cope with the mental health pandemic. Just as you are starting to feel like you are getting your feet back under you – perhaps you booked a flight to see family you haven’t seen in a long time – and your mental health during the pandemic is improving, you suddenly find yourself coping with disappointment when it gets cancelled. This up-down seesaw can make it hard to maintain your emotional sangfroid.

To help get you through perhaps the toughest part of the course – the equivalent of the 25th mile/41st kilometer of the marathon – when you are face down in the mud because you feel like you just can’t make it to the end, I’ve put together a list of suggestions for crossing the finish line. Here are five ideas to act on NOW that will give you the energy – the equivalent of an electrolyte boost from a shot of pickle juice – to continue moving forward, step by step through the covid anxiety.

1.  Meditate

 I struggled for the longest time to get into meditation. I thought it had to be done in darkness and silence and the point was to erase or evacuate all thoughts. I felt like a failure. A bored failure. I was delighted to discover I was incredibly wrong. The point of meditation is not to erase thoughts, it’s simply to take a break from them. To let them come and pass while you are using the power of your imagination to escape the current grayness and drudgery into a fantastical place of light, inspiration, music, and gratitude.

Take some time and create a place you’d like to visit…in your mind. Spend some time in that daydream. Let reality intrude, as it will, but let it float away like a cloud or drive off in a cloud of bus fumes. Stay in the daydream for at least ten minute each day. I suspect after you do it for awhile, you’ll want to spend some more time there.

To help you begin, use the links at the end of this article to discover some powerful meditations.

2.  Grow

Use this (self) enforced pause as a moment to move forward, rather than stagnating in loneliness and boredom. Set an intention for what you want to come out of this pandemic with: do you want to end up having mastered a new skill or reinforcing your love handles? Some growth ideas:

• Watch some online videos related to what you want to learn. Sign up for Coursera or Ideo University or MasterClass. Watch a Ted Talk or twenty.

• Journal. Learn something about yourself. What makes you tick? What is driving you nuts? What needs work?

• Teach someone something. In a two-in-one approach, my friend V.T. created a site to summarize a book she read, linking the content to related recipes.

• Give yourself a feeling of accomplishment. Start or finish a project that you’ve been putting off – something simple from tightening the loose door handle that drives you mad to knitting a sweater for Aunt Selma.

3.  Move it

• Dance it out. Try emotional dancing – feeling sad? Pick a song and try to express what you feel in movement. Lethargic? Pick a favorite song and dance in slow motion.

• Sweat it out. Challenge yourself to up level your strength. See how many pushups you can do after the end of four weeks of training. Get creative – pour soap and water on the floor and create your own treadmill!

• Get out in nature if you have access to isolated spots. Can’t ski because the resorts are closed? Use that as an opportunity to branch out – try snow shoeing or cross country skiing or sledding!

4.  Play

• Restart your imagination. Read a good book for no reason. Paint or color. Wear bright colors or paint your toenails with bright patterns. My friend G.F. swears by the power of Sister Act, and he’s not wrong.

• Laugh at anything and nothing at all. Need some help getting started? Watch funny animal videos or read a page of Dad jokes and puns. Play a prank.

• Build a blanket fort and spent a few hours huddled inside doing something that has no purpose other than pure enjoyment.

5.  Connect with others

• Create virtual dinners with friends using Zoom.

• Reconnect with a different old friend every day.

• Share what you are doing with others. If you think they won’t be interested, ask yourself if you are craving something to cut the flat boredom.

• Start or continue book clubs.

• Realize that you aren’t alone. That fear, loneliness, boredom, anxiety you feel? Someone else feels the exact same thing. Connect with the knowledge that there is a whole community of people who feel exactly as you do in this moment.

Awareness that the last mile of this marathon is likely to be tough, especially if your emotional fortitude is potentially depleted and the vaccine rollout drags out, is key. In light of that, I challenge you to proactively address your mental health. Try one (or more) of the electrolyte-rich shots of pickle juice I suggested above. And come back to the comments and this community know how it worked. Share your suggestions for others to try!

If you want to connect on these topics simply to be heard, brainstorm ideas that might work for you, or talk through specific issues, click on the link to connect with me in a free 60 minute Coping Call: Book Now.