Great Things You Can Learn From Quarantine

Become a new person in quarantine

Suraj Panigrahy
ILLUMINATION
5 min readOct 3, 2020

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Great Things You Can Learn From Quarantine
Photo by Samuele Giglio on Unsplash

There is little question that this era of isolation and quarantine has left a path of devastation in its wake. Levels of hysteria have increased for several, depression, loneliness, and pure fear have all escalated. Reports of domestic abuse have risen, as have incidences of abuse against the very medical staff that are working tirelessly to save lots of lives.

However, as we are, hopefully, entering the amount of easing ourselves out of quarantine and back to our pre-coronavirus lives, we must ask ourselves; what can we take with us? What have we learned through this experience?

As Viktor Frankl said;

It often takes everything from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms–to settle on one’s attitude in any set of circumstances, to settle on one’s own way.

Routines

Many folks have, for the primary times, worked entirely from home, and/or become teachers for our youngsters. In these circumstances, we’ve likely learned the importance of getting a routine. Whether you’ve got made and sustain a strict routine that dictates and facilitates what you are doing every hour of the day, or you’ve maintained a weekly routine that permits you to stay on track of which day of the week it’s, the importance of routines has been established.

I have placed if you on furlough or unfortunately made redundant, then you’ve got been presented with the challenge of making a routine out of nothingness.

Having a stable routine has been linked with improved sleep patterns and sleep quality, better time management skills, increased self-discipline, and increased self-understanding.

As mentioned above, having a routine need not be as strict as planning out every hour of your day. If that’s something that you find helpful, then keep going thereupon, but a routine also can be a pre-conceived pattern of behavior. For instance, you might know that on Mondays you are doing some artwork, on Tuesdays you call your brother, on Wednesdays you attend the supermarket, and so on.

The certainty of a routine can help us manage uncertainty and having a touch little of structure to our lives can make handling any unpredictability that bit easier.

Habits

Have you picked up any habits during the isolation period that you would like to require forward with you once you ease back to your pre-coronavirus routine? Perhaps you’ve got haunted meditating, journaling, happening a daily walk, or reading a touch more.

You only need to take a fast check out social media to find out that a lot of folks have picked up new habits during this era, from a wave of individuals baking bread and banana loaves to painting, sewing, and running.

Some new habits could be more subtle than others. Perhaps you’ve got been getting more sleep (without having many after-work drinks parties or late-night conference calls to attend), or even you’ve spoken to your grandparents or parents more over the last two months.

It’s worth thinking now about how you’ll keep any of those newly gained habits in your life once you travel back to figure or school.

One of the simplest ways to form a behavior a habit is to stack it onto an existing habit. For instance, if you rise every evening and switch on the kettle to form a tea on autopilot, then perhaps while the kettle is boiling, this is often the time to write in your journal.

Gratitude

During these stressful and unprecedented times, many of us have turned to gratitude to stay them going. I have stripped us of many of the items we thought made us happy, like holidays, partying, gym-time and therefore the like. We’ve also been stripped of many of the items that really bring us joy, like hugging our loved ones.

In a time once we are not any longer ready to distract ourselves with such pursuits, we’ve become more conscious of what’s important to us, and have learned to understand this; loved ones, freedom, health.

We look back on our pre-pandemic lives and that we tell ourselves and our loved ones; “I’ll nevermore deem granted the power to satisfy friends for coffee”, “I’ll always appreciate the power to possess a picnic within the park with my kids”, and “I’ll always remember this point and what it’s taught me.” but how long will it be before we are back with our eyes glued to our phone screens, canceling on friends to satisfy deadlines?

Unless we attempt to stay grateful and appreciative of the essential things, life is probably going to return to its pre-pandemic state of business and superficiality in no time.

Importance of Connection

As is often expected, most industries took a tremendous hit to their share prices thanks to the pandemic; main street shops, restaurants, cafes, pubs, theatres, and cinemas have all had to shut their doors indefinitely. But three industries that have managed to not only survive but increase their shares are telecommunications, gaming, and food delivery services.

As soon as I asked us to remain indoors, most of the people signed up for some online video conferencing platform soon. Companies invested in such software and lots of businesses and schools moved entirely online within a matter of days.

Even the gaming industry, which enables real-time communication, immediately allowed players to play across platforms (dropping the favored marketing tool of only allowing players to attach online if they were using an equivalent console). Even the planet Health Organisation has supported the thought that online gaming may be a healthy means of physical distancing while maintaining social connection.

Almost immediately, our schedules were crammed with weekly conference calls with relations, distinct groups of friends, virtual pub quizzes, and regular virtual coffee dates. For some, our diaries have more social events in them than pre-coronavirus.

Importance of mental state

Finally, a serious focus over the previous couple of months has been our own, and others’ psychological state and wellbeing.

Being unable to hold out many of our usual behaviors has meant that, for many, our usual coping strategies for stress and anxiety are not any longer viable. For instance, many of us distract themselves from their own psychological state by keeping themselves so busy with external projects that their mind has no time to focus inwards.

With many distractions being removed, they suddenly face us with ourselves and no idea of the way to cope. For several people, the speed of their lives pre-pandemic was so fast-paced that the thought of slowing down was abhorrent, and suddenly they need been delivered to a standstill.

Many folks were conscious of the impact of isolation and loneliness on psychological state, but we were so preoccupied with our busy lives that we didn’t provide it much thought, or we reasoned that we might call our elderly grandparents as soon as things quietened down. Suddenly we are those that are isolated and don’t know what to try to to with ourselves.

What are several items you have learned through this era of quarantine?

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Suraj Panigrahy
ILLUMINATION

I'm love to talk about Tech, Gaming and so many other topics to my family, friends like you. So join me in my journey and we gonna learn something new everyday.