Coping lockdown 2.0

The British government announcing a month long lockdown for all parts of England did not come a surprise. Many of us have, in fact, anticipated that we will definitely have a lockdown especially during the winter months. “For how long?” is a question that I, too, ask.

Like what I have written in a previous post, I was in a bad place during the first lockdown. I experienced anxiety and stress. It was difficult and I have really struggled.

This time around, I hope it would be different. I hope I am preparing myself both mentally and emotionally, and I hope that at this time, I will be in a better state.

So what have I been doing differently this time? I would like to share some of the changes with my life in order to cope the lockdown the second time around.

• Yoga – I have always known that yoga helps me meditate. Four years ago, I started doing yoga. That time of my life was a period of discontent, restlessness and unhappiness. I was in love for the wrong reasons and with the wrong person. It will probably be a subject of a different post, but in a nutshell, I was unhappy and insecure with myself. That time was when I started doing yoga. I learned to meditate and focus on my mind and body. It helped me practice more self-love (more about this later). And it definitely helped me turn away from the person who was causing me so much unhappiness and helped me rediscover who I was as a person, as an individual. It continued for as long as I needed it. I went on weekly sessions in my local gym. It helped – I had a more positive mindset and I saw the difference it made to my daily life. As you would have probably guessed, I stopped at some point. I became busy with other commitments. I developed other hobbies, until I got lazy and cancelled my gym membership.

I have rediscovered how yoga helped me find different a perspective, how it helped me focus on my thoughts and how it helped me become happier. I started doing online yoga since it’s impossible for me to go to yoga classes. I re-subscribed to a Youtube channel (one that I have used before) and done some yoga practices.

One of the most recent ones I have done, I have shared below. Yoga with Adriene has a lot of yoga contents that helped me in whatever mood I was or if there was a specific practice that I would like to try, I always searched on her contents first.

Since I started doing yoga again, my mental health has been better. I try to practice at least twice a week (one during the weekdays and one during the weekends). I observed that I am more positive and at the same time I felt better about myself physically. I hope by continuing this routine, I’d be able to cope lockdown 2.0, or better yet, cope with life, in general.

• Home workouts – Since the daylight savings have ended, I realised that because the days are now shorter and with work still as demanding as ever, I had to think about how to keep myself physically active. During the first lockdown, my boyfriend and I would go for long walks during the evenings because there was still light. However, since now it’s dark and cold during the evenings, going for long walks are not as enticing as before. Good thing I found the perfect app for me.

As a person who follows certain celebrities, I was aware that Nico Bolzico and Erwan Heussaff had launched their new app called Rebel. Soon enough, I found myself downloading it and trying the home workouts.

It was a different experience for me. I used to do Muay Thai with a personal trainer who would correct my posture and my form. With Rebel though, I had to rely on the mirror and make sure I am doing it right based on what I see in the videos. This didn’t stop me from doing weekday workouts. I make sure that I log off from work between 5:45pm and 6:00pm and start my workouts. Since starting this routine, I noticed changes in my mood and my physical self. We all know that when we exercise, we release happy hormones that will help us boost our morale and just be happier versions of ourselves.

• Healthy eating – My partner is a health advocate. We have started this shared journey of having a healthy and balanced diet. He doesn’t eat meat that much and because we live together, his eating habits have greatly influenced my own diet as well. Since observing healthier eating habits, I found very positive changes in my life. I felt my skin has become lighter (although this could be because I also started a skincare routine which I will write about below), I no longer feel bloated and I just feel a bit better. As a Filipino whose dishes are mainly meaty ones, I struggled at first. But living in the UK had a lot of perks, and that includes finding meat alternative in the supermarkets.

Since the lockdown, I have eaten less and less meat. There is the occasional cravings for Filipino meaty dishes, but I have come to love eating vegetables. We have also incorporated eating different nuts and making our own vegetable and fruit juices. We’ve started using less oil when frying and mixing whole grains with rice.

I think having a healthy lifestyle contributed to a more positive outlook in my life.