Lockdown is meant to prevent the spread of infection from one person to another, to protect ourselves and others. This means, not stepping out of the house except for buying necessities, reducing the number of trips outside, and ideally only a single, healthy family member making the trips when absolutely necessary.
If there is anyone in the house who is very sick and may need to get medical help, you must be aware of the health facility nearest to you.
Handling Social isolation Staying at home can be quite nice for some time, but can also be boring and restricting.
Here are some ways to keep positive and cheerful.
1. Be busy. Have a regular schedule. Help in doing some work at home.
2. Distract yourself from negative emotions by listening to music, reading, watching an entertaining program on television. If you had old hobbies like painting, gardening or stitching, go back to them. Rediscover your hobbies.
3. Eat well and drink plenty of fluids.
4. Be physically active. Do simple indoor exercises that will keep you fit and feeling fit.
5. Sharing is caring. Understand if someone around you needs advice, food or other essentials. Be willing to share.
6. Elderly people may feel confused, lost and need help. Offer them help by getting them what they need, their medicines, daily needs etc.
7. If you have children at home, keep them busy by allowing them to help in the household chores - make them feel responsible and acquire new skills.
Focus on facts, reject rumors and theories
1. Knowledge is power; the more you know about a certain issue, the less fearful you may feel. Make sure to access and believe only the most reliable sources of information for self-protection.
2. Do not follow sensational news or social media posts which may impact your mental state. Do not spread or share any unverified news or information further.
3. Do not keep discussing all the time about who got sick and how. Instead, learn about who got well and recovered.
4. Stick to the known advice, hand hygiene and keeping a physical distance from others. It is being careful about yourself, and also about care of others.
5. A common cold is not a Corona infection. The symptoms of Corona have been well described. Follow etiquette of sneezing, coughing, avoiding spitting in public places etc.
These data allow us to make two primary contributions. First, we can conduct longitudinal analysis examining how physical activity and mental health have evolved during the pandemic compared both to baseline pre-pandemic levels and to prior cohorts. The use of pre-pandemic data is critical, as the studied behaviors exhibit significant seasonal patterns. Second, we can link biometric measures of physical activity and sleep to survey measures of mental well-being and social distancing. This approach allows us to identify risk factors for depression during COVID-19 and compare those factors to predictors of depression prior to the pandemic.
We first document large changes to physical activity and sleep. Over the course of the 3-mo semester, average steps decline by over half from 10,000 to 4,600 steps per day, overall physical activity declines by about a third from 4.4 h to 2.9 h per day, and sleep increases by about 25 to 30 min per night. We also find dramatic shifts in self-reported time use.
Our study contributes to the growing literature examining the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on physical activity and mental well-being.
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