With coronavirus spreading, the message is to stay home.
But adjusting to this new way of life is hard for everyone? What can you eat when the shops are running out of stock? How can you get exercise? How do you keep socialising when you can’t meet up with people?
To help you get an idea of what people are doing, we’ve launched My Quarantine Routine – a mini-series for the coronavirus pandemic.
For our first instalment yesterday, we spoke to Kelly, a business owner and foster carer who is worried about having six teenagers in the house for months.
Today we’re with Rebecca Hills, a 21-year-old social media executive and freelance journalist.
Rebecca is based in London but last week, she travelled to Essex to stay with her parents. She is currently working from home at her parents’ house.
She is in recovery from anorexia and lives with depression and anxiety. She says that she is worried about how the changing situation is impacting her mental health but is taking steps to try to maintain a routine.
This is how she spent Friday 21 March.
6:30 am
Alarm went off and I preceded to reluctantly roll out of bed to snooze it for another 10 minutes.
Being at home, back in the Essex countryside, I felt more guilty about this than I do in London because I come from a family of ‘morning people’ who have normally completed an entire to-do-list by 6am.
6:40 am
Alarm went off again and, inevitably, I snoozed it again.
6:50 am
Finally resolved to stop snoozing the alarm and actually get up. After standing and looking in the mirror for a further ten minutes trying to motivate myself to go for a run, I pulled on my leggings and sports bra, did a few lacklustre stretches and headed off on the least enthusiastic 5K of my life.
7:30 am
Mid-run thought: ‘I’m actually quite enjoying this.’
7:31 am
Mid-run thought: ‘This is hell, please make it stop.’
7:45 am
Run completed, feeling very smug despite nearly stacking-it whilst sprinting past a bus stop of teenagers in an effort to create the illusion that I’m an Olympic athlete.
8 am
Breakfast. As someone who still suffers with anorexic thoughts, it’s really important that no matter what mental state I wake-up in, I eat a nutritious breakfast every day.
Today, as per usual, I opted for porridge with raisins, granola and frozen berries.
One thing I am loving about working from home is that I don’t need to rush my breakfast anymore.
I can actually sit and enjoy it without looking at the clock, hurriedly rushing through it to make sure I have time to fill my eyebrows in before jumping on the tube and heading to the office.
9 am
After spending far too long eating my breakfast, performing a shower concert for my cats in the next room and sitting watching TikToks in a towel for 20 minutes, I get dressed for work.
At the moment I’m opting for the classic WFH look of a relatively smart top, paired with pyjama bottoms and novelty slippers.
Being able to be comfortable while working is a luxury I’m definitely going to miss once the office re-opens and I have to think about what to wear again.
9:30 am
AirPods in and ready for the daily team meeting. Today I spent most of the 15-minute call trying to stop my cat from getting in front of the camera as he walked across my desk and sat on my laptop keyboard.
As a high-functioning depressive who needs structure and organisation to thrive, I’ve found having a mandatory team check-in every morning at the same time hugely helpful.
Knowing that I have to be online (and not in bed) at 9:30am is a great motivator and keeps me feeling productive.
10 am
The upside of being back at home means that I’ve actually got an office to work from as neither of my parents can work from home and so I’ve managed to commandeer the space.
The downside of being back at home is that my dad keeps opening the office door or shouting up the stairs at me every time I’m in a conference call, which doesn’t quite give-off the professional independent woman vibe I’ve been honing for the past 10 months.
11 am
Started to go a little stir-crazy, despite only being sat down for an hour and a half.
The problem I face as a someone with a concoction of mental health conditions is that of never feeling productive enough.
While I’m sitting down working, I’m beating myself up for not being active enough; while I’m exercising, I’m beating myself up for not working hard enough.
It’s a catch-22 situation that working from home is only seeming to perpetuate.
12 pm
Lunch. One of my many attempts to keep some structure in my life is by religiously having lunch between 12 and 1pm every day.
I’m finding that by making myself eat at the same time every day, I’m not skipping meals or getting into bad habits where I have to do enough exercise to earn my meals.
Today I had humous on wholemeal toast with tomatoes. Not a hugely nutritious or filling meal, but the problem with the ridiculous stockpiling situation is that I’ve been unable to buy the food I usually would; so, I’m resorting to meals that I know don’t trigger me, with ingredients that don’t seem to have run out yet.
1 pm
Afternoon check-in meeting. Another great thing my boss has implemented is an afternoon team meeting to make sure we’re all on-track and to give us an opportunity to raise any issues we’re facing with working from home.
I’ve found these calls incredibly helpful for reducing my productivity anxiety too as they keep me accountable and provide some structure to the day.
Still battling with the cat wanting to get his face on camera. Honestly, if he was a person, he’d be the type to crack out a guitar and play Wonderwall at a party.
1:30 pm
Every afternoon after the team meeting, I’ve been trying to get outside for an hour to get my body moving and split the day up a bit.
I used to do this in the office by going for a walk around Regent’s Park every lunchtime, so it’s great to keep this routine in place even while working from home.
Today, however, I made the grave mistake of thinking I can still wear my very white Fila Disruptors in the Essex countryside. Let’s just say I’ll be cracking out the wellies next time.
3 pm
After my walk I settled back in for an afternoon of work. I’m working on launching a series of podcasts for my company at the moment; so, the next hour was spent trying to work out how-on-earth we can record remotely and still produce audio that doesn’t sound like it was recorded on a potato.
4 pm
Brief dance interlude. Dad left the house for a little while and I decided to seize the opportunity for a ten-minute break and danced around the kitchen like a TikTok celebrity to I Will Survive.
I’ll miss breaks like this when I’m back in the office – not sure my boss would see the funny side to me booking out a meeting room for a dance break.
5 pm
With half an hour left of the workday, I decided to use the opportunity to make my to-do list for tomorrow and ensure I’d updated our team Work-in-Progress document.
My cat had decided to fall asleep on my notepad – making the to-do list slightly trickier than I initially anticipated.
5:30 pm
End of the working day and dinner time. At the beginning of the week, I prepared all of my dinners so that I didn’t even have to think about what to make.
Every day I’ve been watching the news while eating my dinner which adds a slightly sombre flavour to my lentil Bolognese, but at least I’m keeping informed.
7 pm
To keep myself active, I’ve been taking an evening walk too.
This evening I went for a pootle around my village for around an hour while listening to my favourite political podcast, Newscast from the BBC.
Keeping up to date with the news has actually eased my anxiety rather than exacerbate it as I feel mildly in control when I have all the information.
8 pm
Since I started seeing my therapist back in January, I’ve been trying to wind-down for bed at 8 pm.
This evening I journaled about my day and the ongoing pandemic, read a little more of my current book – Ordinary People by Diana Evans – and FaceTimed some friends.
9:30 pm
Bedtime. I’m a creature of habit and love being in bed by 9:30pm every night, it really eases any anxiety I have about being unproductive the next day and means I can definitely try and get at least eight hours of sleep.
If you want to get involved with My Quarantine Routine, email laura.abernethy@metro.co.uk.
Need support? Contact the Samaritans
For emotional support you can call the Samaritans 24-hour helpline on 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org, visit a Samaritans branch in person or go to the Samaritans website.
source https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/24/quarantine-routine-rebecca-social-media-executive-anorexia-depression-12445125/?ITO=squid
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