In just a few weeks, it will be exactly a year since the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

In a matter of days in March 2020, millions of people were sent home to work (when possible) and kids set up their virtual learning classrooms. Now, even after the vaccine rollout, there’s still much uncertainty. Which areas will see spikes in cases again as officials allow for gradual reopenings? Is the vaccine effective against variants? And does double-masking actually work?

Meanwhile, many of the healthy routines people committed to in the beginning may have fallen by the wayside over the past 12 months. With little hope of a quick resolution to the situation, it’s time to re-dedicate to healthy habits and positive self-care to continue dealing with long-term COVID stress and anxiety.

In this episode of Promo Insiders, Executive Editor Sara Lavenduski speaks with mental wellness expert and coach Martha Munroe about steps to realign self-care for better health and improved relations with loved ones.

Podcast Chapters (only available on desktop)
1:08: Dealing with long-term stress
4:36: Better shut-eye
10:15: A balanced diet
18:22: Daily activity tips
23:19: Managing distractions
30:23: Monitoring self-talk

“The coping and self-care strategies we use for more short-term, acute stress may not necessarily be as adaptive in the long term,” says Munroe. “Think back to the days when you were in university, and you’re like, ‘I have an exam coming up in a week. I’m not going to eat right, get the sleep I really need, get that workout in. I just have to do this thing and then it’s over.’ But that hasn’t happened.”

Good self-care starts with better sleep habits, which set a person up for making better decisions during the day. Munroe recommends improving “sleep hygiene,” like initiating a bedtime ritual to start winding down, turning off all screens about 30 minutes before trying to sleep, avoiding caffeine and alcohol later in the day and setting up a physical environment that’s conducive to sleep, like room darkening curtains. Try not to make changes too drastically, she suggests. If going to bed earlier is the goal, try 20 minutes at a time to get there.

“Physical activity is anything where you’re not sitting or lying down. It can be just getting up and making yourself a cup of tea, and just providing yourself with a little more invitation to move.” – Martha Munroe

One of the ways to get better sleep is to exercise during the day. With people putting in long workdays, an hour-long fitness class at a boutique studio can seem like a luxury. Munroe says it doesn’t have to be that formal.

“A really big thing is being more generous with our definitions of exercise and physical activity,” she says. “Physical activity is anything where you’re not sitting or lying down. It can be just getting up and making yourself a cup of tea, and just providing yourself with a little more invitation to move. I like to have music on in the house … it just invites you to move a little bit more. It shifts your mood. You notice a change in your energy.”

Support yourself in the process by listening to and reframing “self-talk,” the thought patterns (and often judgements) that play on repeat in our heads.

“The most important thing to keep in mind is that it’s going to be a process,” says Munroe. “Start to be aware of it, start to notice it. … We can have a little bit of space between the thought and the action. In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, it’s called the ABC Model. There’s an activating event, and we think it caused a consequence. But in between that, there’s a belief. And if we can question the belief, then sometimes that can help shift the self-talk.”

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