Self-Care While in Social Isolation

kj_320March 31, 2020

Day 17 of #SocialDistancing, of corona house arrest, of self-quarantine, and social isolation – I mean I can keep the names coming. Point is, that I am a little over two weeks into this #SocialHouseArrest and I am going C-R-A-Z-Y. While on my three to four times a day Pinterest binge, I saw a lot of pins that inspired me to do a post about self-care while on house arrest. I wanted to do a mental, physical, and emotional self-care post that wasn’t just “have a glass of wine” or “put on a face mask”.

Here are some of the things I like to do to practice self-care while on house arrest due to the COVID-19 virus:

One of my absolute favorite things to do when I need a pick me up, besides eating a pint of ice cream (and I don’t recommend that if you’re home all day and not exercising) is to light a candle. I absolutely love candles, I have an insane amount of candles and a hidden stash no one in my family knows about. 1000% candle hoarder. But that’s okay because it comes in handy, especially now when you may need something to pick up your mood. There’s something about a refreshing scent that automatically relaxes me when I’m tense or even anxious. It’s a great distraction to be mid-meeting and get a whiff of my candle burning in the background. Such a refreshing feeling.

I personally do not have a bath, so I prefer long showers, but if you have a bath and prefer those taking a long bath is such a great idea and an awesome way to practice self-care. Since we only have showers in this house, you can typically find me standing under cascading hot water for a good hour when I need to just unwind and disconnect. I absolutely love that feeling, and I’m sorry I do care about the environment but once in a while a girls gotta relax and that’s what it takes for me to relax – OK?

While taking your bath and/or long shower, putting on a hair mask is always fun. I have a few hair masks that I want to try in my basket on Sephora, post coming soon, and I have a Kristin Ess one I love in my shower. I’ve also used Oaui, Moroccan Oil, and DryBar. There’s actually a new DryBar purple mask that I’m dying to try – both in powder and liquid form.

Pick up a good book! As I’ve mentioned before, I love to read. I am currently on my third book of the year (I know, I’m super behind I should be on at least six by now) – it’s called Such A Fun Age. I love it and can’t wait to finish, I’ll be reducing my TV intake at night in a way to unwind and disconnect, and reading is exactly how I’ll be doing that. Hopefully I can finish this week and move on to my next book, A Woman is No Man. I am in the book club at Telemundo, and I also want to be reading what Reese Witherspoon’s book club is reading so I’ve got a lot to catchup on.

Today my manager mentioned a new app she discovered called HouseParty. I have yet to use it, but my sisters have. I prefer FaceTime or Google Duo, but everyone is gravitating to HouseParty or Zoom – even Microsoft Teams! The point is to have a fun virtual conversation with your family, friends, girlfriends, cousins, etc. Have virtual happy hour! Virtual birthday parties! While in social isolation, it’s important to keep sane and my friends and family definitely help me do that.

Write it out. When I need a pick me up, or I am just having a rough day all around, it really helps me to write out whatever I’m feeling. Or even if you don’t feel like writing about it, just write. Doodle. Color. Doing things like this helps relax your mind. There will be times where I’ll grab my iPad and Apple Pencil and just write “love you, mean it” on the page. Then there are days where I’ll be up for hours writing ideas or blog posts I want to publish. Sometimes I’ll even just write a letter to myself or to a friend, or to my son. Anything that gets the words out of my head and onto a piece of paper or the iPad screen.

Have you ever heard a song that just instantaneously changed your mood? I have and one of the first things I do when I’m in a bad mood, stressed out, sad, or just “blah” I turn a song up and (as corny as it sounds) I start singing and dancing, jamming out totally by myself. There are actually a few songs that I gravitate to automatically depending on my mood. If I want to cry, I listen to a song that reminds me of how much I miss my son. If I want to laugh, I listen to something fun like the Spice Girls. If I just want to sing I listen to Eminem, NSYNC, or Britney Spears – ALWAYS. Those are my absolute favorite instant mood lifters. If I want to just get out of my head, I have a playlist that does just that. When I need to work and I get distracted easily, I have an “Office DJ” playlist I downloaded from Apple Music. Depending on my mood, I have a bunch of different kinds of songs I gravitate to.

Do your skin care routine. I have recently, and by recently I mean the last year and a half, been extremely consistent with my skin care routine. I make sure to wash my face every day, twice a day – if I don’t make it up a second time (mostly before bed) I have cleansing face wipes in the drawer next to my bed. I invest heavily on my skin care products, making sure that I use things that work well on my skin. I’m extremely sensitive so although I like to experiment, I have to be careful. I use moisturizers, serums, masks – you name it, I have it and I use it.

Along with your skin care routine, put some makeup on! Do your hair! Get dressed up! It helps distract me from the boredom and isolation in my house to get dressed up. Although I haven’t worn mascara in over two weeks, I make sure to get up and get dressed for the day. Physically changing out of my pajamas and into sweats, or shorts, or even jeans is an instant mood lifter. I try very hard not to stay in my pajamas. I am attempting to avoid hot tools on my hair, so I don’t physically blow-dry my hair but I do wash it or put a headband on, or even put it up in a bun with a cute hair tie. Self-care for me specifically is that I feel good, doing my hair and makeup, even my skin routine is extremely helpful in doing that.

Make a vision board. I used to love to do this when I was younger, I’d grab a bunch of magazines and cut them up – buy a poster board and put a collage of things I wanted out of the day, week, month, year, etc. Although Pinterest makes it easy to do this without the pen, paper, and scissors sometimes doing it manually is refreshing. It’s something that I personally like to do additional to my Pinterest boards.

Get 7-9 hours of sleep per night. Sleep is extremely important. My family makes fun of me because I will go to sleep super early, but sometimes when I’ve had a long day the only thing I want to do is sleep so I can wake up fresh the next day and do life all over again. For me, sleeping stress off is the best thing. I can go to sleep and wake up feeling like a whole new person. Trust me, if I don’t get enough sleep you won’t want to put up with me!

I think the most important way to practice self-care though is to celebrate small wins. When you’re home, all day long, whether it be working, going to school, or just watching TV all day it can be extremely hard to feel like you accomplished something worth celebrating. However, making it through a long day of virtual meetings, passing a test, getting something from your to-do list done those are all things worth celebrating – even if it’s something tiny. It’s worth celebrating whether it be with a sweet snack or a nice drink, even some exercise. Celebrate the small stuff!