All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
- Pascal
Quarantine, lockdown, social distancing… no matter the name you give it, it still doesn’t sound great. It’s not just not being able to hang out with your friends, even though that’s a bummer – we have nice virtual ways to still do that. It’s more about being told not to go out, stay indoors, stop moving around. And the fact that we don’t know how long this situation is going to last.
The problem with staying indoors is not just a potential loss of fitness – there are ways to work around that, by doing some workouts at home and finding ways to remain at least a bit active (without jumping around on your neighbours’ head if you live in a flat). Te problem is not even with the amount of space available per person; it is definitely an important factor: every living being requires a minimum amount of space around them to not feel claustrophobic (too quickly). Another important aspect is the ability to have alone time when in quarantine with other people. And having virtual social time when in quarantine alone. It’s all about finding the balance that works for you, while remembering we need a bit of both (how much of each will be entirely up to you). But it’s not just that, no. The biggest issue with the quarantine is being told we cannot go out explore the world. As Pascal said, men cannot stay still. It makes evolutionary sense for humans to have a drive to go out and about: first, to find food, you needed a rather pro-active attitude back in our cavemen days; second, being able to find new territories with possibly better living conditions was crucial for the survival of the species. Our brain is literally wired to reward us with dopamine when we go out in the world [dopamine: happy hormone; (1)]. We don’t need to discover new places anymore: the simple fact to go out for a walk around makes our brain happy. People hate being inactive and still so much that they would rather receive small electric shocks than being left alone with their thoughts (2). That’s how bad we feel the urge to move.
The problem with not knowing when the situation is going to end is that it can generate stress. The amount of stress it will generate, here again, varies between individual. Some people are pretty good at dealing with uncertainty while others are completely freaked out by not being in control or not having all the information accessible right now. The issue, you see, is that stress weakens the immune system [you know, the army that defends our body against all the villains from the outside world… like COVID-19; (3)]. A weakened immune system is less efficient at doing its job, which means it is more likely for you to catch something… like COVID-19. You see the problem? No matter how much safe sport you do or how much up-beat music you listen to to strengthen your immune system, it is all for nothing if you are stressed all the time. Another thing stress does is give you grey hair (4). For real, it’s not just something we say anymore. A team of very serious scientists (must be, the paper was published in Nature) have identified all the ways in which stress can give you grey hair or make your skin fade overtime. Problem is with all the hairdressers closed at the moment, we have no way to hide our grey hair anymore and if we’re not ready for them yet, we might try to avoid their appearance, right?
Yay… so how do we do that? How do we make sure we don’t go crazy because we can’t go outside as much as we’d want to and how do we avoid going fully grey by the end of the quarantine? In other words, how can we keep cool?
It turns out that the thing our brain reward us for is taking the time to escape from… reality? Everyday life? Something like that. If our brain releases dopamine when we go out and about, so does it when we explore with our thoughts, when we spend time learning about something we are curious about (5). Did you ever notice that it is much easier to learn and remember about a topic you find interesting? Ever wondered why? Because when you do, your brain gives you dopamine. This ability to escape the real world using our thoughts and imagination is a key difference between humans and other animals. A caged animal (human or non-human) deprived of any form of entertainment or possibility to engage in any form of activity will soon develop frustration that will lead to violence. Take a prison for example: there have reports showing a reduction of violent behaviours when you provide inmates with the ability to engage in different form of activities. And that’s why the practice of completely isolating an individual can be considered as torture, living deep psychological traumas.
The difference between humans and non-human animals is that humans are able to distract themselves by thinking about the possibility of a better future. Mental exploration is a form of exploration as important as physically exploring the world around us. Stephen Hawking probably used to travel a lot more than most of us. He might have been trapped in his own body, but his mind remained free. No matter how cliché it sounds, if it worked for him, it should work for us. Use this time at home to find new things to be curious about, take the time to explore new ideas, play quizzes to develop your general knowledge and pop culture.
And it might help keep your stress level under control! Take the time to write down all the things that stress you out and sort them out between the things you do control and the things you don’t control; do a mental check of how you feel and what makes you feel how. Learn to let the things you cannot control go. Your brain does not have an infinite amount of resources; it is already pretty overwhelmed at the moment with practical things, such as: how to work from home with/without kids? How to keep a routine? How to remain sane? When to plan the daily wander in the outside world? Should I go outside knowing I expose myself to risks? And so on, so forth.
Do you really want to add another layer of things for your brain to worry about, knowing there is nothing you can about it? I understand you might feel like the quarantine is incredible unpractical and throw off all the plans you made for his year. Sure, yeah, that’s true, but what are you going to do about it? Throw your fist in the air and blame… whoever you want to blame? Go for it if it makes you feel better. Or maybe you wished you could do more. But if you are not a ‘key worker’, then your role is to stay home; convince yourself that you are doing plenty by staying home, because you are.
So, you can let go of the things you do not control and focus your energy on the things you do. You can also acknowledge the things that are still going well for you… or all the ways in which it could be worst. Yep, that’s right. While a lot of wellbeing methods tell you to focus on the things you are grateful for at the end of the day, researchers find out that the brain quickly take for granted the things that are going well and do not pay attention to them. However, when focussing on how things could be worst, our brain remains happy for longer (6): it’s called mentally subtracting positive events. The goal is to think about how your life would be if you did not have that person in your life or the use of this or that body part. First, evaluate how happy you are at the moment. Second, close your eyes and imagine you now have horrible back pain that impair every one of your movements or that you just lost someone close to you. How do you feel now? Third, come back to reality: how happy are you now?
You could even do it with every object in your house. That might be a great way to realise which objects are truly useful and which ones you don’t really need. I might give it a go next time I decide to sort out my flat… the next Spring clean is around the corner after all. In the meantime, don’t forget: your mind is your greatest exploring tool. Feed it with books, craft projects, Trivial Pursuit games or endless learning.
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