How to look after your mental health if you’re at home & COVID-19 positive

For many of us, contracting COVID and isolating ourselves at home can be a lonely, frightening, and distressing experience. For those with a pre-existing mental illness, it can be even more difficult. The following strategies are designed to help you take care of your mental health if you contract COVID and are isolating at home. Remember the basics. When living in a time of great uncertainty and threat, it can be difficult to remember and practice simple strategies to maximize wellness.

If you are isolating at home with COVID, it is important to:

• — control fever and other symptoms such as aches, pains and sore throat with paracetamol or ibuprofen.
• — maintain a healthy diet
• — keep up your fluid intake, especially if you have a fever
• — stop exercising for at least 10 days and, depending on the severity of your symptoms, return to exercise slowly (if you have any questions about returning to exercise, ask your GP)
• — deep breathing, which can help lung function and keep you calm during isolation and recovery, but this should be done in consultation with your doctor
• — practicing mindfulness to help cope with the inevitable anxiety around illness and isolation
• — find distractions like reading, watching movies, or doing a creative activity, which can help keep your brain from obsessing over worry (this is particularly important for children)
• — and stay connected with friends and family, online or by phone.

It is important to monitor your COVID symptoms. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has a useful symptom diary to help with this. Or use Healthdirect’s Symptom Checker to decide if you need medical help. If you live alone, you should arrange for someone to check in with you regularly to make sure you’re getting by.

Some coping strategies to avoid

During times of anxiety and uncertainty, such as isolating at home with COVID, it is understandable that people turn to drugs and alcohol, unhealthy eating, gambling, or other addictions to manage psychological distress.

These strategies can temporarily relieve stress. But they can cause more long-term mental health problems.

It is also important to avoid “doom scrolling”, which is the tendency to keep reading bad news on your mobile phone, even if the news is sad, disheartening or depressing.

You may want to unplug from social or mainstream media if it has become detrimental to your mental health.

It has been very difficult for people with mental illness. The pandemic has made living with mental illness even more difficult.

The last few years have been challenging and exhausting for many. People with mental illness and other chronic conditions have had to adapt their normal coping strategies to cope, shifting care and some forms of therapy online.

Recovery and management of mental illness often involves activities such as exercise, positive social engagement, and therapy, all of which may be limited due to COVID restrictions, financial constraints, and staffing shortages.

Acute services, including hospitals and general practice, are struggling to meet demand.

Isolation can be particularly difficult for people who do not have a safe and secure home.

People experiencing domestic violence have more difficulty accessing care as they may not feel safe interacting with health professionals in their homes.

Children are at greater risk of harm if they live with domestic violence. They may not have safe places to go when schools or childcare are closed, so family, friends and services like the Kids Helpline play an important role in supporting children.