Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ‘22
by Woodlief McCabe ’23
Staff Writer
Pandemica is an advice column for anyone struggling to make life function normally in isolation. I’ll address the different challenges we are all facing, and give you some tips that will help ease the stress.
Separate your mealtimes and work times
This one might be controversial, but I’m going to be completely straight with you: It’s absolutely effective. When we do our classes from home and don’t leave our houses, our routines start to fall apart.
You’ve probably felt like the days are slipping together, attached only by Zoom meetings. We’re also constantly in artificial lighting these days, giving us a false sense of daytime. Suddenly, “dinnertime” and “lunchtime” aren’t really times of the day anymore. If you’re like me, you eat whenever you remember, probably at your desk while attending a class or doing your readings. However, making a conscious choice to set down your work to get a snack or prep a meal will help you form a routine and make sense of the day.
Many times, I have been a victim of absent-minded eating, blindly reaching for another chip only to find that the plate is empty — and has been for a while. This is another benefit of giving your meals their own distinctive time. It will help you savor the food and improve your mood.
I get that eating breakfast on Zoom seems like killing two birds with one stone, but your oatmeal can wait, and you won’t end up getting called on by your professor with a mouthful of food.
Journaling
Yes, yes, you’ve heard this one before. I’ve rolled my eyes at plenty of faux self-help guides that say bullet journaling will solve all your problems. Sure, for some people that works amazingly, but for the rest of us sitting here without tiny pristine handwriting and a 24-pack of colored pens, that’s not really going to cut it. Luckily, journaling doesn’t have to be so manicured. Keeping a diary-type account of your life can be a productive way of organizing your emotions and experiences at the end of the day. Sometimes simply writing about what is stressing you out can relieve that stress.
A therapist once told me to get a planner and write something that happened each day and then how I felt about it. I personally still keep a pocket-sized Moleskine notebook with me. Sometimes I’ll write, but most of it is filled with drawings, stickers and Polaroids I’ve taped inside. I’m not an artist by any stretch, but the act of filling pages feels great. As an incredibly wise former roommate and friend of mine once said, you don’t have to be good at drawing to draw.
Bonus tip: be patient. Whoever else is in your household is also living through a pandemic. Sometimes that’s hard to grasp when your conversations with your parents devolve into shouting matches. You don’t have to excuse anyone’s behavior if they’re mean or hurtful, but you can decide for yourself what’s worth arguing about.