Coronavirus: How to Protect Your Mental Health During Home Isolation

Support Your Body’s Natural Rhythms

Sleep is cued by biological, environmental and social factors. From the light we absorb and the timing of our meals to when we are active and interact with other people.  Being homebound for many days can disrupt routines and these important sleep cues.  When natural sleep rhythms are disrupted, daily routines become even more threatened, further damaging the sleep-wake cycle.

Follow these tips to promote restorative sleep during home isolation.

Get up at the same time every day. This routine anchors your body’s day-night routine, and the sleep-wake cycle. When you get up at the same time, you’ll find other daily routines easier to manage, and sleep will come more naturally at night.

Get daylight early in the morning and throughout the day: Specialised retinal cells in the eye send information to the brain about the quality and quantity of ambient light. This process triggers the body clock (circadian rhythm) when we wake, throughout the day, and as we prepare for sleep. So taking in bright light when we get up in the morning signals the body to wake up and move into action. Bright light also helps us feel more alert quickly.

• Open curtains to let in direct sunlight;
• If you don’t have access to natural light, turn on bright indoor lights
• Lights with a white/blue hue are better for morning light.
• Use a Sunrise setting with smart bulbs to turn on lights at the same time daily and gently increase the intensity of lighting to a daylight hue.

Schedule your first social interaction at the same time: In regular life, we’d likely have our first conversations at around the same time each morning – over the morning routine with our partner, outside the school gates, in the queue for our favourite coffee fix, commuting, when arriving at work… Those interactions are all signals to the body that the day is progressing, but isolation changes everything.  Try to plan a phone or video call with family or friends every morning at around the same time you would usually chat with someone in regular life.  The other person will likely value the conversation too.

Eat breakfast and other meals at the same time: The act of eating updates our body clock throughout the day. Maintaining a regular meal schedule helps regulate biological systems throughout the body, which underpins good sleep.

Get some quality exercise each day: Avoid long periods of sitting as this can slow metabolism and other biological systems, and disrupt sleep later.

• Morning: Exercise early in the morning may result in longer, deeper sleep at night, by kick-starting the body’s biological clock for the day.
• Afternoon: The body is 1-2 degrees warmer by the afternoon, so muscles are more capable of engaging through complex movements. As a result, we’re less likely to experience aches, strains and other injuries than with morning or evening exercise. Exercise raises the body’s core temperature for 4-5 hours, before gradually returning to normal.  So afternoon exercise also helps prepare the body for a good night’s sleep.
• Evening: Vigorous exercise too late in the evening may disrupt sleep by over-stimulating the body for too long into the night. Try gentle stretching exercise like yoga in the evening, as this helps calm both body and mind.

Separate day from night: During the day, fill your living spaces with light and activity. From cooking and cleaning to exercise, crafting, and learning. As evening draws in, dim the lights, and tone down the activities. For example, reading, playing board games, watching TV.  Choose your music carefully to reflect the energy you want to feel at each time of day to support good sleep.

Block blue light before bed: Blue light stimulates the body’s wake cycle, and blocks production of the sleep hormone, melatonin. Limit your exposure to blue during the 1-2 hours before retiring to bed, to improve your sleep.  Use light bulbs or smart-bulb settings with a warm hue. Turn off electronic devices, or set the screen brightness to the lowest possible option, and use built-in systems like Night Shift for IOS. Download and app like lux to manage your screen’s night lighting.

Stop a Broken Sleep Spiral

During stressful times when familiar routines are disrupted, we can expect to have nights of disrupted sleep.  Follow the tips below to avoid one night of elusive sleep cascading into a drawn out battle with insomnia.

When You Cannot Sleep

Don’t focus on Sleep: When we worry, our body becomes tense and our mind becomes over-stimulated. Tossing and turning with a racing mind will only leave you feeling more frazzled and stressed about the lack of sleep. Stop focusing on the effort to sleep, so your body can relax and allow sleep to come naturally.

Remove clock faces: When you can’t sleep, it can be tempting to keep checking the time, but it will increase anxiety about not being asleep. Removing visible clock faces from your bedside to prevent this disruptive habit.

Do Not use watch TV or use devices: even low levels of blue light during the night can stimulate the brain to greater wakefulness. If you think you may be tempted to use your device during a wakeful night, store it in another room at night.  Another option is to learn to use your device with screenreading accessibility settings (Voiceover for IOS and TalkBack for Android), so the screen can be completely turned off at night.

Take a break from chasing sleep: If you find yourself awake for more than 15 minutes, get up, wrap up warm to keep your core temperature stable, and go into a different room. Keep the lights dim, and do a calming activity such as reading, listening to an audiobook or relaxing music, a meditation or a very gentle yoga routine.  Try an app like Calm or Headspace.  Avoid anything stimulating.  Return to your bed when you begin to feel sleepy again.  The aim of the reset break is to calm your body and mind, and avoid your brain learning to associate your bed with being wakeful at night.

After a Night of Poor Sleep

Get up at your usual time: Although you may feel really tired in the morning, sleeping in to “catch up” on lost sleep will confuse your body clock, slowing many biological systems and making sleep even harder the next night. When we get up as usual, the body actually catches up with lost sleep naturally by sleeping more deeply the following night.

Go to bed at or after your usual time the next night: Do not go to bed too early because you feel more tired than usual. Going to bed too early could make it harder to drift off.  You’re also more likely to have broken sleep during the night, and wake too early in the morning.  During the day, before you feel over-tired, identify a quiet activity you can do in the evening to avoid falling asleep too early.

Stay active and avoid naps: Plan your activities for the day so you are less likely to sit down and mindlessly nap. Try to select low-stress, enjoyable activities as difficult emotions are always harder to manage when we are tired. If you are so tired that you must nap, set your alarm for 20 minutes only.  Any longer will risk the quality of night-time sleep. You may also be woken during deep-phase or REM sleep, which will leave you feeling even more sluggish.

Acknowledge that worrying about sleep won’t help: Uncertainty magnifies our emotions and worries. We can often emerge from a wakeful night filled with the desperate need to sleep, and concern for the night ahead. But fixating on the failure and need to sleep only makes the situation worse.  Instead of raising your anxiety about sleep, actively say something like “Sleep is a natural system, and I trust my body. Worrying will only disrupt it. So I will focus on the things I know I can do to reduce my stress and support good sleep.”