Your worries are completely valid. In 2020, a group of researchers teamed up to examine the impact 21st-century viral epidemics have on mental health. The review, published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, showed that living through an epidemic can lead to a variety of mental health conditions, the most common being anxiety, depression, and PTSD. In some cases, these effects lingered long after the epidemics subsided. For these reasons, the best thing you can do is to think outside the box about how to offer your support from a distance. Below are some ideas of ways to help someone living with COVID-19 (or actively avoiding it) while staying safe yourself.
Make a Call
Perhaps the easiest first step is to reach out directly and make a phone call to see how the person is doing. You may wish to stay in contact more frequently than usual, to keep in touch, and to prevent the person from feeling isolated. If you’ve made several phone calls that haven’t been returned and you are truly concerned for the safety of your friend or loved one, consider calling for emergency assistance to check on them.
Listen and Ask How to Help
If your friend or loved one does talk with you on the phone, the best thing you can do is to provide a listening ear. Just being there to listen and offer support could be the most important thing that you do during this time. Ask what you can do to help, but also consider offering to do specific tasks or to drop off specific items. Do they have a dog that needs walking or other outdoor chores you can help with? It could be that the person is overwhelmed mentally, and unable to think of what they need at the moment, or afraid to be a burden on you.
Drop Off Meals and Groceries
A person affected by COVID-19 may not have had time to stock up on necessary supplies or food to last for the quarantine period. Consider preparing a few healthy freezer meals or doing a porch drop-off of a bag of fresh groceries. Healthy foods like whole grains, vegetables, and fruits along with pantry staples with a long shelf-life are the smartest choices. Other items that you could include might be laundry detergent, soap, toothpaste, hand sanitizer, and toilet paper (if store stock permits). Just make sure that you are doing a contact-less drop-off to avoid spreading potential contamination.
Connect on Social Media
Where would we be without social media? If your friend or loved one is on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat, stay in touch with them by sharing photos or updates. The best approach to social media at this time will be to balance positivity with reality. A person who is in isolation due to COVID-19 doesn’t need to be told to “stay home.” That person needs social connection and support more than anything at this time.
Send a Letter
Your friend or loved one may appreciate receiving a letter or card through the postal service, particularly if they are in the older adult category (65+). A handwritten card is something that they can tuck away to read again and again when they need to feel supported or are struggling with feeling isolated.
Arrange Deliveries
If you can’t physically go out yourself to drop off groceries or other supplies to your friend or loved one, another option might be to arrange deliveries. You can also check to see if any delivery services have sprung up in your community, such as neighbors helping each other or certain community groups offering to make deliveries to those in quarantine. Tapping into the local community of your friend or loved one is one way to do this, either by looking for local Facebook groups or contacting anyone in the area that you know.
Do a Shared Activity
One way to stay socially connected might be to suggest a shared activity that will keep you in regular contact. Examples might include reading one chapter of a book each day and talking about it online, writing together in an online journal, or watching a particular movie at the same time and texting or instant messaging about your favorite parts. Other ideas might include watching Netflix series together, playing online games against each other, or listening to the same audiobooks. Doing a shared activity gives the person something to do and it gives you a reason to stay in regular contact with them.
Keep Them Informed
While you don’t want to make someone who is isolated feel more alarmed than necessary about the situation of the world, being a source of reliable information could help to dispel any myths that they may be subject to through social media. This means keeping yourself informed by listening to reputable sources of information such as large news agencies, public health organizations, and government advisories. Those faced with quarantine are more likely to feel distressed if they have unclear information and communication, which can be the case during the pandemic. Do what you can to minimize the impact of these issues by passing on as much reliable information as you feel comfortable sharing at this time.
Ask About Finances
While it may feel uncomfortable asking about money, if you know your friend or loved one might be facing financial pressures or living paycheck to paycheck without an emergency fund, it may be wise to check up on their financial health. If you are in a position to help financially, that could be an option to temporarily ease their burden. Depending on how well you know the person, you can also offer to help them organize their finances or pay bills to relieve their mental burden and help where you can.
Give Them a Routine
Having a regular daily routine during isolation or quarantine is likely to help the person’s mental health and mood. Getting enough sleep, getting regular exercise, and going to bed at a certain hour each night are just as important during isolation as they are at other times.
Prepare Yourself
If you are feeling lost about how best to support the psychological health of others through a pandemic, Johns Hopkins University is offering free online psychological first aid training through the Coursera platform that can help you prepare for how to best support your loved ones. If you have concerns about the psychological well-being of your loved one, you could also look into online therapy or chat-based support. Also, remember to take care of your own mental health during this difficult time. This may mean making extra time for self-care activities, even though it feels like that is the last thing you have time for. Keep up your exercise, get enough sleep, take vitamins, eat healthy, practice meditation, and generally amp up what you would normally do when going through a stressful period of life or a transition. The information in this article is current as of the date listed, which means newer information may be available when you read this. For the most recent updates on COVID-19, visit our coronavirus news page.
