How to take care of your family's mental health in difficult times

Here we are again, still. I’m looking at the same four walls, the same four faces – if you include the one I see in the mirror each morning. Lockdowns may be helping reduce the numbers of COVID-19 infections, but they prioritise physical health over mental health.

My biggest worry over the past 12 months has been the impact extended isolation will have on my two young boys. Both are in primary school, one preparing for SATs and entrance into high school. It’s a stressful and anxious time without the complications of global pandemics.

My wellbeing is less of a concern, but a concern all the same. Whether we like it or not, our mental health impacts our family.

The extended stress of COVID-19 is impacting our relationships, our physical and emotional well-being - it's even changing the structure of our brains. It’s impacting another death toll too.

Trading mental wellbeing for physical health

The infection rates across the UK and the US have been alarming. Less publicised yet even more alarming is the impact this is having on our collective mental health.

In countries with higher COVID-19 death tolls, there have been indications of a similar uptick in suicides. What’s more, the higher compliance with government guidelines throughout the pandemic, the worse mental health becomes. Humans are social creatures, locking ourselves away from each other may stop the transmission of the virus, but it appears it’s also resulting in more ‘deaths from despair’.

Is it worth it?

25% of young adults in America have been struggling with suicidal thoughts since coronavirus hit. It’s not just young adults, children as young as 9 have failed to see the point in living and ended their lives. In the UK, the Child Mortality Database noted some concerning indicators of suicide among under 18s in the first phase of the UK lockdown.

It’s still too early to be completely certain if the conditions we’re living under are causing higher suicide rates. With efforts focused on COVID-19 infections, coroner’s reports and investigations into causes of deaths have been delayed, in some cases by as much as 5 months. This alone makes a clear picture of the effect of coronavirus on suicides and mental health difficult to paint.

What is known however, is that suicide is usually the result of the culmination of factors – economic uncertainty, loss of coping mechanisms, loneliness, anxiety about the future and feeling trapped or defeated are some. It reads like a description of the situation created in response to coronavirus.

Are we creating a mental health timebomb for our future?

Mitigating the mental health risk of coronavirus

Prolonged and chronic stress causes physical changes in our bodies and brains. Along with an uptick in cortisol and other natural chemicals that harm our cardiovascular, respiratory, and immune systems, real physical changes happen in our brains too.

Cells called microglia that clear out damaged and redundant synapses can go into over-drive. These cells can trim the connection between our amygdala, hippocampus and prefrontal cortex that helps control our impulses. Poor memory, cognitive processing and a depleted ability to manage our stress response is the outcome.

To prevent ourselves, and our kids, from long-term damage from this pandemic whether we contract the virus or not, taking active care of our mental state is a must. If we don’t, a vaccine certainly won’t make the future any brighter than the bleak picture the stats and facts about the impact of virus-justified restrictions and lockdowns on our wellbeing are painting.

Build your own resilience first

To build the resilience of our children, we need to look after our own mental and emotional wellbeing too. It’s a big task, but as parents, we’re used to big tasks, aren’t we? All-nighters with sick kids, exploding nappies, teaching subjects we were happy to leave behind and stroppy teens; we can handle all that, we can do this too.

Resilience is about weathering storms. If life always ran smoothly, we’d never have the chance to grow and develop resilience. It can be helpful to look back at other difficult times in your life and think about the helpful things you did to get through. Once you remember what they are, unpack them and put them to use.

For me, journaling is a big one. Getting swirling thoughts out of my head and onto paper provides relief. The relief allows me to gain some perspective. It helped me when my parents divorced and also when my Dad remarried - twice. It still helps today.

Instead of ruminating on the page, try solutions-focused journaling. Write down your worries, then, daydream on the page about how they could be made better. They can be as fantastic as you like. Solutions Focused Techniques can help us find creative solutions to seemingly impossible problems.

Time on my own is necessary for my optimal functioning. In a house with a partner and two small boys, getting this is not always easy. In the first lockdown, I made a point of getting up earlier than everyone else. This gave me a free hour or so each day. I still do it now. It means going to bed a little earlier so the effort isn’t undermined by lack of sleep.

Sleep is a big one for emotional and mental wellbeing. Sleep is restorative for our minds and bodies. The usual recommendation is to get somewhere between 7 and 9 hours each night. We’re all different and the amount of time we need varies over our life.

If you have trouble sleeping, try some simple tricks. With the stress of lockdowns and global pandemics, you might find that you need more sleep than usual. Lean into this. Give your body, emotions and mind what it needs so you can be your best.

Regular exercise and cutting yourself a break are also important for keeping an even keel in difficult times. So what if you’ve not seen the bottom of the laundry basket for the past month or the sheets haven’t been changed on all the beds for..? Even though activities are limited, life in lockdown and under restrictions can be exhausting. So cut yourself some slack, it’ll improve your wellbeing and make it easier to support your family.

Help your kids bounce back

Childhood should be about climbing trees, catching bugs and being carefree as you grow and learn. But that’s a fantasy. In reality, childhood has its own stressors – changing schools, friendship groups, bodies.

Still, coronavirus turned the volume WAY up on the stress our kids are facing as they grow to adulthood.

Fortunately, there are some simple but effective ways we can help them grow stronger from the experience. It’ll give them a better foundation as adults to deal with whatever else is in their futures. Simple and effective is what we need right now, so here we go…

1. Look outward – care for someone or something else.

No matter how bad things are, there’s always someone who’s going to be worse off than you. Looking after others can lift them up at the same time as lifting ourselves up. Volunteering has been shown to reduce stress and increase wellbeing. No matter how young we are, we can help someone else and lift ourselves up by improving our internal dialogue – we become helpers rather than victims.

Donating toys that are no longer played with, cleaning a beach or making it your child’s ‘job’ to check in with a family friend each week can help their mood and lift their internal sense of worth. Even looking after a pet can support wellbeing and build resilience.

2. Change perspective

Anxiety can be motivating, too much is debilitating. It’s important to acknowledge challenges and validate feelings. Equally important is to foster a perspective that we have some control over our lives. This can be done by changing the perspective on a difficult situation – similar to solution-focused journaling. Acknowledge the situation and look at it from the perspective of finding a solution.

When you do this, no solution is too far-fetched. The main idea is to let our minds go in the direction of solutions rather than focusing on the problem that is causing upset.

3. Do something fun

When things are hard, they can colour the way we look at everything else. One way to build resilience and bounce back from difficult situations is to focus on the things that we do have control over and are good at.

This could be baking, drawing, playing make-believe, pretty much anything – as long as they’re good at it. For a week of home school, our afternoon project was to make a poster of ten things we liked about ourselves. It was a simple activity – finding pictures of those things and arranging them on a page in a way that pleased us. It was easy and it boosted confidence. Confidence gives you bounce.

4. Get moving

Learning self-care from an early age is important. Our physical selves have a huge impact on our mental selves. Even fake-smiling can lift your mood. Eating well is important, getting enough sleep and, of course, moving. Exercise generates body chemistry that lifts our mood – endorphins and reduces stress hormones like cortisol. Go out for a brisk walk, run, cycle or a game of kick-about.

5. Cut loose

When the world feels topsy turvy, we can feel trapped and hemmed in. One way to release ourselves from these feelings is to take a break and cut loose for a while.

This is going to be different for all of us. When I was a kid it would’ve meant spending a day with a book. For my ten-year-old son, it meant being allowed to roll in the mud. His younger brother shouts in the woods as loudly as he can when he’s had enough. Letting off steam is an important part of staying in control of who we are and being able to move on with calm and purpose, so let your kids cut loose and let go when they need to. As long as they aren’t harming themselves or anyone else, it can help.

Getting through this global pandemic well is more than just avoiding the virus or getting physically ill. It means taking care of our minds. Given the response many countries have taken – isolating populations and locking down communities – that means being creative and becoming more aware of what we need to stay well mentally.

Take the time to care for yourself. It’ll help you come out of things stronger, happier and more able to move towards your post-COVID goals faster and with more clarity. Helping your kids do the same will give them the tools they need for their future.