Online Counseling Question: How can I better cope with cabin fever during Covid-19? (Video)

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Hi, I’m Jennifer Rosselli and I’m a Licensed Mental Health Counselor at Thriveworks. The question that was asked was, “How can I better cope with cabin fever during Covid?” And I think that’s a great question cause it’s something that we’re all dealing with and trying to understand together day by day.

So how we choose to cope is going to depend on who we are and what kind of position we’re in. So some of us are homeschooling our children, some of us are alone, have roommates working from home, might’ve lost their jobs or maybe we’re at high risk. There are just a lot of different variables that go into figuring out how to cope with this. So the first thing I want to say is to have a reaction to this cultural shift is totally normal. When you have more time on your hands, you might find yourself faced with different kinds of anxiety and that’s okay.

Talking to someone who can help, can help you figure out what to do with that reaction. It can be really beneficial in understanding what would help me during this time. So some suggestions that I give my clients are putting structure in your day. For instance, how do you make meaning in your day, in small ways over time? I mean, it can help mimic, you know, how our lives were before when we had a little bit more structure, and left the house, that kind of stuff. So some folks also might find this a very helpful time to take on projects that they weren’t able to try before. Which can be anything from organizing stuff around your house to taking on a new hobby. There’s a ton of new free online classes where people are learning new skills.

That can be a really exciting way to feel like you’re accomplishing something. Other people are finding that this is a great time to connect with family and friends in different ways. Like I’ve had clients say that they attend certain social gatherings via zoom or different kinds of online meetings. Or have parades by like driving by their family’s house and like keeping social distance in that way. So being creative about socializing and doing it in ways that we didn’t previously think of. For other people, it might be a really good time for you to start to understand yourself a little bit better, which can sometimes be intimidating.

So if you’re noticing any uncomfortable feelings, that’s completely natural, like I said earlier, and you don’t need to run from those emotions. Sometimes these emotions are a sign that something needs to be addressed. So for instance, if a car was malfunctioning, it would start to make noises and shuttering and all these different kinds of things that would alert us that something needs to be adjusted with the car. So in some ways people are similar, you know, where our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that can become more pronounced in order to get our attention and our care.

So ultimately, there’s not a perfect solution to this, and that’s okay. This experience is pushing us all out of our comfort zones. And while we explore ways to adapt we’re going to stumble. And I think that as adults, it can be really uncomfortable to be new at something. But it is really okay to experience and explore new solutions to things. Experimentation into new realms is something that we do as children often, but we tend to shy away from, as we get older. But being new at something is the only way that we learn how to grow into some sort of change. Yeah, so that helps. Thanks.

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