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Cabin fever8/5/2023 ![]() ![]() If going for a walk makes you feel more anxious because of worries about maintaining physical distancing, just standing on a balcony, in your backyard, or on your front steps for a few minutes could improve your mood.Ĭhecking in with others through technology or phone calls is important. “It's amazing how much that exposure to sunlight is going to help with some of your endorphins and your serotonin levels, which are all going to make you feel a whole lot better,” Hubbard said. If at all possible, getting some time outside can have a huge impact on your mental health. Wearing pants in a pandemic is an achievement. Putting on a full suit for a work from home shift might be energizing for some, but don’t worry, it’s not completely necessary - the important thing is just the act of getting dressed at all. ![]() “Even if it’s just into (more) comfy clothing.” When you get out of bed, put on something that you didn’t sleep in. “Having regular ‘work time,’ whether that's you working, whether that's your kids doing some schoolwork, whether that's you tackling a project, (or) building some exercise time (is important),” Hubbard said. every day, but keeping yourself on a loose routine of some type - getting out of bed at a similar time, having regular mealtimes, attempting to keep to a shower schedule - will help to keep your spirits up as the weeks go on. The good news is that there are a number of things that a person can do to fight the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. “So I do worry, especially as things continue, if we may start to see more of that risky behaviour as part of all of this,” Hubbard said. It’s a way to shake off the “lack of motivation, that lack of energy,” that cabin fever brings. People who are experiencing a lack of control and stimulation “need to activate some of those endorphins,” she explained. Hubbard gave the example of people snowboarding down the streets of Newfoundland during the aftermath of January’s blizzard, which locked people within their homes for days. One of the concerns with cabin fever is that it can lead to people wanting to engage in risky behaviours more. It's that real disruption in all of our normal social patterns.” “It's not being able to grieve and mourn even normal natural losses that are continuing to happen. “It's fear for personal safety, fear for safety of others,” Hubbard said. Someone who is stuck in one place because they went on an art retreat isn’t going to experience the same type of cabin fever as a population preoccupied with a life-and-death situation which is occurring right outside of their front door. ![]() “It's that uncertainty, and we don't cope well with uncertainty for sure.”įears associated with COVID-19 itself add another layer of anxiety. “You wouldn't be having people having those same sensations. “It's one thing if we just told everybody that, OK, you know what, you need to just hole up in your house for the next two weeks and on a certain date we're going to lift all restrictions, Hubbard said. The fact that a specific end date for physical distancing can’t be predicted only makes things worse. “We're used to social interactions … in terms of daily routines,” she said. When our routines are disrupted, we don’t respond that well. Humans are creatures of habit, Hubbard explained. If you’ve noticed yourself feeling an increased irritability, restlessness, a lack of motivation, difficulty focusing and an increase in sleepiness and unhealthy eating habits as the weeks go on, you might be experiencing cabin fever. “There's kind of a cluster of symptoms that we see when people are forced to being cooped up for extraordinarily long periods of time,” Hubbard told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview. It’s no surprise that for many of us, cabin fever is creeping in.Ĭabin fever isn’t an actual psychological term, according to registered psychologist Janine Hubbard, but it is a common word used to describe the state of mind that people trapped in one place tend to have. Coronavirus newsletter sign-up: Get The COVID-19 Brief sent to your inbox.It’s been around four weeks since Canadian officials started insisting on physical distancing - and those who took the pandemic more seriously before others may have been isolating themselves for even longer than that. Most workplaces are shut down, we can’t leave our homes for our ordinary social gatherings and the concept of getting within an arm’s length of a stranger on the street is both terrifying and nostalgically evocative. Life is looking a little surreal for most Canadians right now. Amid the immediate fear and confusion that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought into the lives of Canadians lurks another rising problem: the crushing boredom and anxiety of cabin fever. ![]()
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