Top Tips to Lift the Lockdown Blues

Tip 1 – Start slowly

Find something that you feel comfortable doing, it may be a walk in a new park, or going somewhere further afield than you have during lockdown, rather than jumping straight into something big. This reminds our primitive brain gently that we can take risks without harm coming to us, which is great for encouraging us out of our caves and back out into the world. New is often seen as a threat for our primitive brain because there are too many variables for it to assess, so we second guess and doubt. But, if you start small you can help your primitive brain realise that it can let you have a bit more control back and that not all risks are hungry polar bears!

Tip 2 – Do something that feels normal

Get a takeout, go to the beach, have a dog walk with a friend. Re-connecting with the activities that were normal for us before lockdown helps our primitive brain to see that everything hasn’t changed, it wasn’t the end of the world, it was just a pause in the way we live to keep us safe.

Tip 3 – Pick your battles

Your friends may be desperate to meet up but if you don’t feel comfortable yet don’t push it. Look for a compromise – maybe meet up for a picnic in the park rather than your usual trip to the pub.

Tip 4 – Find a different way

One of the things we’ve learnt through lockdown is to find different ways of getting the same feeling. Lockdown may have forced us to find new ways to exercise, shop and stay connected with friends but our brain loves it when we try new things, or new ways of doing things and it rewards us handsomely with an extra hit of our feel-good hormone serotonin. So, keep exploring new ways of doing things, even though we might not have to anymore.

Tip 5 – Re-connect

One of the biggest challenges during lockdown has been how to stay connected when we can’t physically be together. And this is a biggie for us humans as we are a social species. As you start to feel comfortable doing so, reconnect with those people who are important to you – may be a couple of close friends or family members. Build your confidence (and theirs!) by meeting in ways that make it easy to maintain social distancing rules – maybe take your own coffee to meet in the park, rather than meeting in a café.

Tip 6 – Support your community

It’s hugely important to our well-being to feel part of a supportive community. Whether that’s with your work colleagues, your local church, your gym or exercise class, or local societies or shops – it gives us a sense of belonging. Whilst shopping online has made our lives so much easier during lockdown it may be time to think about shopping locally where you can – not only is it a great way to re-connect with your community but it’s also a great way to support your local businesses, which is always a satisfying feeling.

Tip 7 – Manage your news consumption

Of course, it’s been vitally important to stay up to date on the news and the ongoing changes during lockdown but situations like this can get us into bad habits of checking the headlines too often. Our brain has a negative bias (it has to, to keep us safe from potential threats!) and will always put more value on the negatives. S,o for every negative piece of information we consume we need to outweigh it with at least a good 10-12 positives in order to keep our brain seeing a balanced view. Cutting down on our news consumption is a great way to make that task easier – we only need to know that piece of information once, not 6 times a day in the hourly bulletin. And if you do feel the need to read some news why not try out something like The Happy Newspaper – at Inspired to Change we love it when this lands through our letterbox!

Tip 8 – Practice the Art of Gratitude

We know, this comes up on so many of our Top Tips but that’s because it’s such a powerful thing to do to help our mental wellbeing. When we get into the habit of writing down just one positive thing each day it literally changes how our brain is working. It stops scanning looking for more negative information to report to you and instead starts scanning for more positive information – the more positives it reports the more it boosts your production of your feel-good hormone serotonin, helping you feel happier, braver and more confident.

So, if you’d like to find out how solution-focused hypnotherapy could help to lift those lockdown blues why not get in touch to book your FREE initial consultation with your local Inspired to Change hypnotherapist? Inspired to Change Hypnotherapists are based across the UK in Bristol, Cambridgeshire, Devon, Kent, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Norfolk and Somerset.

Inspired to Change Hypnotherapists are all recognised by the National Council for Hypnotherapy, the UK’s leading not-for-profit hypnotherapy professional association.

To find out how you can train as a solution-focused hypnotherapist click here for our hypnotherapy school information

Or you can check out our Lifting the Lockdown Blue blog here for more information on why you might be feeling stuck at the moment.