Lunacy in Lockdown: Secrets to Staying Sane
Since the outside world shut its doors, I have understandably been at a dead end for recommendations outside the house in our fabulous city. Whilst these are challenging times for all of us, we must remember that there are people working around the clock to get our country back on its feet and us back out the door as soon as humanly possible. We must also recognise the immense suffering people are going through at this time, and loss of lives of loved ones and family members that many people are facing as a collective. Instead of whingeing, I’ve decided to take this opportunity to do subtle but out of the ordinary things to keep my spirits up, and I’ve decided to share these with you here – adding to the 564,893 blog posts already written on the subject. You’re welcome (I'm sorry).
1. Become a Bath Person
I’ve never really understood people who don’t like baths. They’re relaxing, cleansing, and some of the only time we get to ourselves in the hyper-social and connected world we live in. Life is a little different now, and whilst we all have a little more time than usual it’s good to focus a chunk of that on taking care of ourselves. For me, bath time is some of the only time away from some sort of screen, be it a phone, laptop, or television. This no-screen time is SACRED. Bath time is most certainly not for checking work emails, or catching up on texts, so do yourself a favour and leave your phone outside the bathroom and on silent. If you find purely jamming challenging then bring in a book – I’m currently reading Lord of the Flies as I find many parallels to today’s dystopian world and never ended up reading it in school. Top your bath-time off with some essential oils: lavender is great for the pure chill, whilst tea tree has anti-viral properties if you’re feeling a bit rough.
2. Doorstep Meet Up's
I am lucky enough to be born and bred in London. This meant that when all of the University graduates of 2016 decided to move to the big city and start their lives, me and my mates already had roots here. Given that the majority of us went to the same school, it also means we have the luxury of living relatively close by – some literally a 30 second walk around the corner. Last week, whilst I was working from home, I spotted my neighbours having a lil doorstep sesh – soaking up the sun sat two metres apart from their company. Video call is all very well, but there is nothing quite like seeing a friendly face in the flesh, so sometimes I take my daily exercise walks past their houses. We don’t touch, and we stand 2 metres away from each other. It’s probably not really allowed, but it technically abides by all of the government rules as none of these houses are more than a 15-minute walk from mine, meaning that it gives me ample time to walk there and back with a 30 minute socially distanced catch up in-between. Top tip: make sure you go for a wee before you leave and don’t drink too much beer. You will not be let in to use the toilet. This could potentially cause some unwanted tension which none of us need right now.
3. Get a Sweat On
Restrict anything and it instantly becomes more appealing. The prohibition of alcohol? Underground drinking dens. Criminalisation of drugs? Acid house raves. Your hot history teacher? Countless real-life scandals and endless porn videos depicting this fantasy play out.
Along with the benefits we're seeing on the Earth's climate as a result of lockdown, I genuinely believe that more people are going for runs and general exercise than ever before. Yes, we don’t have the walk to work, or the wrestling match of the northern line anymore, instead this has been replaced with trips to local parks and commons that many rarely frequent in their usual lives. Whilst I love being outside and walking, I LOATHE cardio. It’s just so damn boring. But not only do we need it to reduce the jiggle, it is also pinnacle to our mental health. You can pump as much iron as you want, but I promise you nothing gets rid of anxiety and feeling low like getting your heart pumping and being so out of breath you think you might faint, or throw up, or both. Plus, if you’re like me and can’t meditate without thinking of all the things you need to do, or what you’re going to make for supper, then you may also agree that the only true way to ‘focus on breathing’ is when catching your breath is literally all you can do.
However, getting the motivation to do this is hard right now. Enter what I like to think of as my cardio magic wand: High Intensity Interval Training. You can do this for literally 10 minutes a day – it burns twice the number of calories as your normal cardio AND allows you rests in between sets. What I love most about HIIT is that it’s hard work but it’s over so quickly. It’s predictable – I use a great free app and do the 10-minute intermediate choice every time, so I know exactly how much more I have to go before it’s over. Follow these 10 minutes with some strength training (squats, sit-ups, weights) and you’re sorted. I’ve found that doing bicep curls with your basket of shopping whilst waiting in a never-ending queue is quite effective, especially if that’s the day you’ve run out of milk.
Another exercise craze that has been popping up is online workout classes. Whilst Joe Wicks is stealing the nations heart with daily PE workouts to help keep children sane, many are offering online yoga classes. Anyone who knows me, knows I HATE yoga. I’m 24 and I can’t touch my toes. I try not to let this bother me, but it does. I envy bendy and flexible people with a passion, those who can easily tie their shoelace or pick up that lucky penny without any hint of a bend in the knee. This means that yoga classes really aren’t for me. A colleague of mine recently posted on our noticeboard a 30-day yoga challenge channel, totally free and run by ‘the queen of yoga’, Adrienne. I decided to give in and try once again to see what all the fuss was about, given I can now do this in the comfort of my own home not surrounded by a load of hyperextended yogi’s. Maybe by the end of quarantine I’ll be able to touch my toes.
Oh Adrienne. She seems nice enough, but comments like ‘kiss the earth’ and ‘soak up each other’s awesomeness’ honestly make me feel sick. After her first class, I tried youtubing ‘Non-Preachy Yoga’. It doesn’t exist. Granted, I didn’t look very hard, but I decided nonetheless to stick with Adrienne. Her classes are good, not too hard (for a complete novice like me), and not too long (20-30 mins on average). Now I find my solace in the fact that whenever she says something ridiculous, I shout at her. It’s my own form of meditation.
4. The Art of the Video Chat
Gone are the days where we saw our mates down the local, gone are the overpriced club nights, and gone are the work meetings where you all squeeze into the biggest room in the office and enjoy your free lunch. Ah, the good old days. When facetime first came around, I bet no one thought how pinnacle a tool this would become in 2020. Video-chat is literally the only way we can really connect with people outside our houses in an as close-to-the-real-thing way as possible.
Let’s face it… video chats can be incredibly dull, especially when you are a mere observer. Not physically being in a room with people means that it’s really bloody hard to avoid scrolling through Instagram during your company catch ups at the latest covid-meme game or checking your horoscope for the 10th time today hoping that it provides some clarity on your future in these uncertain times. This is why some Zoom Humour is key. Zoom provides chatters with the ability to change their background – a feature that should not be wasted. You’ll notice, slowly but surely, your colleagues have started to appear on lakes, beaches, and engulfed by beautiful stock-imaged sunsets. Inject some fun into your meetings. Ditch the Maldives for a picture of the Northern Line at rush hour, or place yourself in a meeting room in your office and see the look of confusion emulate from the surrounding faces. We may complain of missing the office, but do we really miss the tube at 8am? Signal to everyone that whilst these are pretty awful times (there are 100 places I’d rather be than stuck indoors), they could always be worse.
From work to play: enter the virtual pub quiz. The day that lockdown was announced, a friend of mine invited us to partake in a 37-member strong Whataspp pub quiz. We were added into two WhatsApp groups: The Stay Inn quiz (for questions and quizmaster only) and The Stay Inn Bar (for unruly team competitiveness and general shit-chat). We also had separate team WhatsApp groups, for us to submit our answers. Each team communicated via houseparty (an app I’m sure every person on earth is familiar with by now), and there was even a picture round. A monumental achievement this early on in quarantine, so big up Rachel. I had to duck out a round early due to covid exhaustion and an early start the next day, but my team, ‘Queens of the South’ ended a very respectable second place.
The Birthday is probably the third most impacted thing during lockdown, after the workplace and the pub. A friend of mine had a birthday last Monday, and her flatmates arranged a pub crawl around their flat to celebrate. Each room of the house became a different pub and had a different group of friends virtually waiting in it to engage in a pub-related activity (all communication was done via houseparty – of course). Tom and I were the first room, and in our pub, it was open mic night. We had a saxophone performance of happy birthday, a poem, and Tom and I wrote and performed a special birthday rap (yes… really). Rooms to follow on from us were a drag performance, a pub quiz about the birthday girl herself, which we all got involved with, and the night ended in a karaoke bar. This was a seriously creative, thoughtful and clever way of providing our dear friend Genny with some semblance of fun and normalcy in a frankly quite awful time to have a birthday. Each room was also based around a different drink (bubbles, beer, tequila), so I’m sure by the end of her crawl birthday girl was suitably smashed as well.
5. Ditch The Flix
Netflix is great, but there is an awful lot of shit on there too. Since streaming and on-demand subscription-based TV became available, people seem to have forgotten about the good old offerings we have on normal telly. Whilst I did eventually give in and watch Tiger King, I have also been scanning the box for other options. Here are three of my favourites.
The Outsider HBO series. Available on Sky Atlantic (but also NowTV and Amazon which both have free trials). This 10-part series is based on Stephen King’s best-selling novel. It is a murder-mystery, crime-thriller, with a hint of the supernatural. The acting is sublime, the story is multi-faceted, and every episode keeps you completely dumbfounded with what the hell is going on. It has 8/10 score on IMDB, 82% on Rotten Tomatoes and 91% on google reviews, so I’m obviously not alone in my appreciation. I’m good with my scary movies, but this series has got my back up. You can always rely on Stephen King to come up with something scarier than Covid-19.
Cobra Sky One series (also available on NowTV). This one has had slightly fewer warm reviews, it’s heralded as ‘cheap’ and ‘predictable’. Just as well then that some predictability is exactly what we’re craving right now, as well as the cheapest Chinese on Just-Eat. Cobra is an uncannily timely drama released a few months ago about an emergency blackout which plunges the nation into darkness. Complete with stockpiling, overcrowded hospitals and stressed-out politicians. If that wasn’t enough to convince you, Robert Carlilsle (aka Begbie from Trainspotting) heads up number 10 himself. Who wouldn’t want to see a drama where someone I can only ever see as an alcoholic, violent-crazed lunatic is running the United Kingdom? Probably why this one is such a disaster after all.
8 TAGE (8 Days) Sky One series (also available on NowTV and Apple watch). I have never seen anything like this series. It’s a German disaster based on an asteroid coming to hit earth and wipe out the whole of Europe. It exposes every aspect of the lengths people will go to for survival, as well as what we would do when literally nothing matters anymore. Yes, it is completely ridiculous and therefore becomes comedic – there are orgies, there are murders with chainsaws, there are affairs, there are even 7-year-old boys smoking crack, but this doesn’t stop the majority of reviews giving it 10/10. Every episode starts with a warning “contains strong drug use, strong sex, strong violence and some scenes which viewers may find distressing”. Reminds me of my last trip to Berlin.
6. Get Creative
I’ve recently had this revelation that I might actually be a superstar artist waiting to be given the opportunity to unleash her talents. I think almost 70% of the population of the UK have had the same revelation. Last weekend, I was pretty disappointed to find out that Mum had thrown away all my stale, messy paints from when I was younger. But I did not let this stop me. I raided shelves, to uncover every felt tip in the house, as well as a pile of unused film photographs from my Photography A-Level, some glue, some coloured paper and some scissors. I spent the rest of my Saturday afternoon collaging, plunging my B&W prints into worlds of extreme colour, engulfed with the beautiful people from magazines lying around our house (FYI there is NO POINT buying the likes of Vogue and Harpers Bazaar, it’s a complete waste of money as all it’s filled with are adverts of things 90% of the world can’t afford, modelled by beautiful people who look nothing like the earthlings that surround me in the queue for Tesco these days).
Since my very therapeutic afternoon of cutting, sticking and colouring, I have ordered a paint by numbers from this website (it says 18-24 days delivery, but we’ll almost definitely still be locked up then too). It looks terribly therapeutic and any path into mindfulness that hasn’t already failed I’m willing to take. I also saw that a friend of mine had collected a load of old birthday cards and cut these up to make a whole new set, ready to be given out to friends this year. Cute is one thing, but sustainable AND cute? It’s a modern miracle. If cute is what we’re aiming for, however, then I think I might have won. Years ago, my Mum brought me a notebook with little comforting and inspiring quotes at the bottom of each page, dotted and ready to rip off. Working from home has given this notebook the most action it’s had in the past 3 years since purchase, and I have ripped out and collected each quote once I’ve finished the page. When Mother makes her daily trip to the shop, I take my pile of inspirational quotes and hide them in places where she will discover them naturally – her knicker drawer, her hairbrush box, her trainers, the tea-bag cupboard. It is the small moments of surprise and joy we need to find in a time of repetition and sadness. Cheesy? Hell yeah. But she bloody loves it.
7. Virtual World vs Real World
The response to lockdown from culture-vultures has been incredible. Not only is The National Theatre releasing a series of plays for week-long totally free streaming access (donation encouraged), but the Tate is releasing virtual tours of both Andy Warhol on April 9th and Aubrey Beardsley on April 16th. There are hundreds, even thousands of other options to choose from to keep us city dwellers inspired, almost too much…
Don’t get me wrong I think it’s incredible how technology means that we can still enjoy these activities (albeit in a different way). I also quite like 'going to the theatre' with the option of lying on the sofa and not worrying about needing a wee or getting claustrophobic. Guided tours of exhibitions are usually kinda lame, but now they’re our only option I’m thanking the heavens that the Warhol exhibition isn’t going to set me back 20 bob and will give me something to do when the sun decides to dissipate this Sunday. However, the amount that is out there can feel really overwhelming - it's enough to make what should be a wonderful novelty, even end up a little stressful. Furthermore, I’m already in front of a laptop screen all day working, phone screen every break catching up with friends, and telly screen every evening relaxing. Do I really want to be adding more screen time to my life?
If you find virtual tours a little weird, even depressing, another option is to see a bit more of the real world that you still have access to. Boris has encouraged us to ‘stay local’, meaning you can walk for up to an hour. I am in a fortunate position to be surrounded by a number of parks, all within a 20-minute walk of my house. These are all the parks I used to go to as a kid – I learned to walk and ride a bike on Clapham Common, smoked my first cigarette on Wandsworth Common, and drank Desperados on the last day of Sixth Form on Tooting Common. Mixing it up and going a little further afield to places with old and fond memories does wonders for the soul. Even if you’re new to your area, try going a different way or stay out a little longer and get to know your surroundings on foot in a way that you never would have before. It gets your step count up and keeps your mind alive.
8. Glow Up
When I was younger, I was obsessed with getting rid of the shine that always used to grace my nose and forehead, so basically just tried to dry out my skin, believing moisturiser was the enemy. Now, however, this ‘dewy’ look seems to be all the range, and I have not a hope in hell of getting any glow back to these tired old cheeks. Poor skin. I’ve been lazy with it. Now I have nothing else to do I decided to give it a crash course in everything it’s been missing for the past 24 years. This thought process started when I got sucked (pun intended) into an Instagram advert to buy a blackhead hoover. Whilst it left my nose bruised for a day, it got out a hell load more than those silly blackhead strips I’ve used in the past. I followed this up with a number of random products I’ve acquired over the years, probably all out of date by now. This included a Clarins exfoliator, a Clarins pore minimising serum, a Benefit eye-cream, some Pearlessence balancing face oil, and some Kiels moisturiser. Whilst my skin is still far from perfect, I am a getting few steps closer to looking like Emma Louise Connolly each day.
With my old random bits near to running out due to the daily maintenance my skin now gets, I have ordered a bunch of products from The Ordinary. It has won loads of awards and is approved by several high-end dermatologists. What I like most about it? The price of course. I get discombobulated when people spend £50+ on things for their skin, The Ordinary want to combat this trend: selling quality skincare for honest prices. Here’s a list of what I bought (although this is based on my skin type and everyone will be different): Salicylic Acid 2% Masque, Coverage Foundation, Azelaic Acid Suspension, Borage Seed Oil, Virgin Marula Oil. It might be a total disaster… but for the price of my Kiehl’s moisturiser I was able to purchase 5 products from The Ordinary. Watch this space.
9. Research and Inspire
You want something done? Give it to a busy person. Motivation levels are so low right now I can’t even commit to binge watching Tiger King (I’m only on Episode 3). Every time I turn on the telly I find myself getting lost in a rabbit hole of endless news, climbing death-toll numbers, and end up feeling so drained at how shit the world is at the moment that nothing really seems to have much point to it.
Luckily, work is still something I have to get up in the morning and do, and we who are simply working from home are the fortunate ones. My work requires a lot of research into new trends and innovations around the world that are changing lives and making a positive difference, so it’s nice to know I get paid for something that actually interests me and makes me feel good. Me and 3 colleagues run a fortnightly newsletter, where we highlight Innovations from around the globe based around different industries. Since we have been working from home, we have pivoted on the industries and done a couple of special editions: firstly, ‘Innovations born out of Crises’ and secondly 'Innovations in the Mental Health Space'. This newsletter isn’t part of the job spec, it is simply to keep us all inspired and forward-thinking to the endless possibilities of creativity and innovation on our daily lives. Think of it as an extra-curricular activity that you actually really enjoy, rather than one you force yourself to do because it will look good on your UCAS application form.
We use an expert-trend analysis tool called Stylus, which I’m pretty sure you have to pay for, but it’s fantastic. We also just use good old google, trend-hunter and other accessible sites to reach findings. I recently came across a list of long-distance relationship gadgets which help connect couples living in different places - something we call all now empathise with in one way or another. It’s safe to say the Bluetooth responsive sex toys made the final cut to the newsletter. So, just remember that there is SO MUCH out there to discover, don’t get bogged down in reading the news. Get lost in the world of what could happen.
10. Appreciation of our Key Workers
On September 12th 1962, JFK delivered a speech about the effort to reach the moon. He used the collective address “We choose to go to the Moon”, signalling the joint effort and making the whole of the United States believe that they were part of something truly spectacular. He later toured NASA, bumped into a Janitor there and asked him what role he played. The Janitor replied, “I’m helping to put man on the moon”. The Janitor has since become a symbol for national purpose and mission.
Whilst the circumstances we currently face are very far from the man on moon mission of the 60’s, there is one key parallel that we face today: a shared mission. The rally cry sent out from the government “Stay at Home. Protect our NHS. Save lives” signals to us, that just like the janitor, we need to recognise the pinnacle part we play in our current circumstances. The Thursday evening claps for our NHS staff have warmed the hearts of a nation, as well as the childlike paintings of rainbows appearing in more windows every day. Coronavirus doesn’t discriminate, as we’ve seen with the victims it has claimed, including our prime minister currently in intensive care and Prince Charles also testing positive: a stark reminder that we’re all made of the same flesh and blood.
As we sail these uncharted waters, I hope that we take one thing with us to the other side: who actually matters. We no longer care what new lip-gloss Kendall Jenner is advertising, or about the interior of Molly-Mae and Tommy’s new flat. Instead, we are discovering a newfound appreciation born out of desperate need for our supermarket workers, carers, delivery workers, refuse workers, and of course, NHS staff. This unified spirit and mutual care for each other reminds me of an advert I saw for Denmark Television a few months ago that truly touched my heart, which seems an appropriate place to end this post on. Give it a watch to warm your cockles and remember that better times lie ahead!
