Congratulations! If you’re reading this you’ve made it through what is hopefully the highest level of lockdown we will have to face.
Despite this positive news, we are finding a lot of clients who are finding life stressful even as the restriction levels lower.
They are finding that the threat level has decreased but their body is still in fight or flight mode.
As long term readers of this blog or client’s at Align will know, helping your body to better manage stress is kind of our thing.
Due to this, we have kept our highest “alert level” in operating the practice.
We are adhering to the stricter levels of social distancing, sanitising all frequently touched surfaces within the practice and will maintain our separation of chiropractors and front desk teams to protect our clients and ensure that in the even either myself or Martin had to self isolate, the other one of us should still be able to provide care to our community.
(For more details on our Covid-19 procedures click here)
But Kieran, why as our restrictions ease am I not feeling more at ease myself?
As usual, great question and also as usual, it’s answer is a little complex.
On the one hand, it’s good to feel like things have gone back to normal to some extent (I mean, who hasn’t been missing eating at a restaurant, drinking a pint or having coffee INSIDE a cafe?), but at the same time it is important to note:
THINGS ARE STILL NOT NORMAL.
Yes more businesses are opening up, yes we can move more freely and see friends again, but we are a long way from how we lived up until February this year.
The reality is, Coronavirus is still a daily feature of our lives, affects our actions and looms in the back ground all the time.
Thankfully we are in Australia where we have hopefully avoided the worst that the virus can wreak, but that doesn’t mean we are free of it.
Our nervous system is very good at detecting threats. It is always scanning your environment for trouble. It’s why you will get a vibe from some people or places that you don’t like being around when you haven’t had any evidence to indicate why you might feel that way.
So despite the relative good news we are currently receiving, your nervous system is still aware that things aren’t normal, people are more stressed and as a result your nervous system might put you on a war footing…just in case.
This is why I decided write a little list of tips for managing our world as it slowly thaws out of lockdown freeze.
It’s OK to not feel comfortable going out into the world just yet.
We are creatures of habit and we have just spent 8+ weeks training ourselves to be wary of leaving the house, avoid groups of people and keep distance from people at all times.
This is not easy to unlearn. It is OK to need time to ease yourself into interacting more openly with the world outside.
Try finding places that have protocols that respect social distancing to the standard you feel comfortable with and build confidence from there.
It’s OK to tell people you don’t want to shake hands or stand close to them.
Again, as a society we have tried to train ourselves to be uncomfortable with others. This will take time to change.
More importantly though, the expectation is still to maintain social distancing measures so you should feel empowered to not shake hands, bump elbows or acknowledge people without touching at all.
Look after your health!
-Keep exercising,
-Try to take time to yourself to relax,
-Focus on the nutrition you’re fuelling your body with,
-Take care of injuries or health issues, get adjusted when you need to,
-work on your sleep hygiene and,
Be thankful that your children’s teachers can work face to face again.
Move.
This is different to when I said for you to exercise. We are all sitting more at the moment, even if you’re exercising, incidental movement from commuting, walking you a co-workers desk or to the bathroom in a large office or worksite etc. are no longer forcing you to break the habit of sitting for long periods and in my experience as a chiropractor in South Melbourne, this has been causing clients a lot of issues.
If you’re working from home or can’t be in your usual work space, watch these videos on how to set up your work space when working on a desktop or laptop.
Keep washing your hands.
It’s easy to be complacent as people around you relax, remember that the expectation is that we keep washing our hands to stop spread.
Finally:
Read my ‘top 7 tips for surviving the lock down’ post.
It contains a lot of info about looking after yourself that even as the world opens up is still relevant.
The team at Align wish you and your loved ones all the very best for this next phase of the pandemic. We look forward to helping keep you all as healthy as you can be.