How to Survive a Mandated Quarantine — Jet Lag Edition

How I am handling mandatory quarantine in addition to jet lag.

tl;dr

• Mandatory quarantine is somewhat like solitary confinement.
• However, I understand that it’s effective in curbing the spread of Corona.
• I have a bunch of different activities that I am partaking in every day to keep myself occupied.
• Jet lag + quarantine sucks and it simply takes time to get over jet lag.

This article is for those who may have to deal with a quarantine once they go back to their home country or are traveling or whatever. So, I recently returned to my home city of Kota Kinabalu which is in East Malaysia. The Malaysian government has mandated that all international travelers must quarantine for two weeks in an effort to curb the spread of Coronavirus in Malaysia. This isn’t like a quarantine in America where it’s more of a suggestion than anything and up to the individual to decide whether or not they want to partake. You are considered a PUS (Person Under Surveillance). When I arrived at the airport initially and I was escorted by officers throughout my entire trip in Malaysia. To put it bluntly, you are somewhat of a prisoner. Nonetheless, I recognize that these measures are for the greater good of society (even though I am 99.9% sure I don’t have Corona) and I will be staying with my dad (who is over 60) once I’m out so I am okay with doing this for two weeks so I am 100% sure I don’t have Corona.

While I am aware that this is something I need to do, it doesn’t make it suck any less, so I’d figure that I should share a few tips or at least what I’m doing to make this quarantine as bearable as possible. Note that I have to deal with the double whammy of quarantining and jet lag (12 hour time difference) and I’ll be going over how I’m personally dealing with both of these things. It is very important that you keep yourself occupied and also to ensure that you maintain your physical and mental health during this time. Here is a list of things I am currently doing on a daily basis:

Meditation

I find it very helpful to start the day with a couple of minutes of meditation just to get into the habit of not getting caught up in your own thoughts. I think this is especially important when you’re in quarantine.

Video/Voice call with at least one person every day

While talking to someone over a device and seeing them on the screen cannot replace face-to-face interaction, I think it’s really important to try to speak to people as much as you can especially when you aren’t getting as much social interaction as you would normally get. This ensures that you don’t forget how to talk to people and honestly helps satisfy the craving for social interaction. Hit up your family, close friends, and old friends that you haven’t spoken to in a while, now is a perfect time!

Exercise

Because you’re probably going to be stuck in a room for two weeks, the amount you move will dramatically decrease due to less walking, etc. So it is important to take extra care of your health during this period. You can do this by doing pushups, situps, planks, dips, etc. and I actually purchased a jump rope to substitute the running I was doing previously. I am also doing yoga on some days when I feel like it.

Speakers/Music

Bringing speakers or headphones and playing music really helps liven the room you’re in. It’s much nicer to have some music you enjoy playing in the background as you carry on with your day, it helps add a little flavor to the environment if you will. Also, it’s pretty nice to be able to workout with some music blasting.

Drink lots of water

Stay hydrated, this is definitely a major key alert! You should be doing this regularly anyway.

Daily showers

It’s important to maintain your hygiene, just because you aren’t going out to interact with other individuals doesn’t mean you should stop taking care of your personal hygiene. You are going to be spending a lot of time with yourself, would you want to spend time with someone who hasn’t showered for a week?

Read

This is another activity that helps you burn through time, while also adding value to your life. You finally don’t have any excuses for why you can’t read the book you’ve been putting on for weeks, months, or years!

Coding/Working on whatever your craft is

You probably won’t have any other time in your life where you will be as isolated with as much free time and lack of distractions from people ever again. It is good to take advantage of the situation and to aim to be productive in working on improving your skills or picking up and learning a new skill. This will provide you with a sense of purpose and if the problem/skill to learn/improve upon is difficult and interesting enough, it will definitely help kill time.

Bring snacks

This is something else that is quite nice to have. If you are like me and you eat quite a lot, sometimes the amount of food provided by the quarantine center is just not enough, as a result, you should bring snacks to supplement the meals provided.

Bring Vitamin C supplements

This helps boost your immune system, the stronger your immune system, since our immune system is what fights of Corona if it tries to infect us or if we have it, you may as well do everything you can to make it as hard for the virus to fuck you up.

Some gaming

I wanted to play Super Smash online, but unfortunately, the internet in my quarantine center isn’t fast enough :( Nonetheless, playing video games for a bit between working/reading is a nice little break.

YouTube/Instagram/Netflix/TV

Similar to video games, this is another activity that is fairly chill and relaxing.

Write/Journal

I think it’s helpful to write about your experiences during quarantine, whether or not you want to publish it online or not, but it helps put things in perspective and allows you to look at the situation from a different perspective with a different attitude.

Now, being stuck indoors for two weeks without being allowed to leave is already a struggle, but I was fortunate enough to also have the pleasure of enjoying quarantine while dealing with jet lag (12 hours difference) following a 40 hour trip from NYC to Kota Kinabalu. Some of the activities above which especially help with dealing with jet lag are: trying to get exposure to sunlight, exercising, drinking lots of water, and having snacks.

Getting exposure to sunlight, exercising, and drinking water helps you stay awake so you can slowly adapt to the new timezone. The sun helps recalibrate your circadian rhythm, exercising gets your blood pumping and keeps you alert and if you keep drinking water you need to pee. The reason I suggest having snacks is because of my personal experience of waking up at 1 AM and being unable to fall back asleep partially because I was hungry. My dad brought cup noodles to the hotel staff to pass to me and I was able to satisfy my hunger the next night and fall asleep a few hours after eating. Regardless, overcoming jet lag simply takes time and no matter how hard you try to force yourself to adjust, it probably won’t work or it will be very uncomfortable. I will simply use this quarantine period to try to get my sleep schedule on track.

Stay safe and I hope you found this helpful!