It's relatively easy to get the technology running to work from home. The hard part is the doing. Don't beat yourself up! Try this tiny tip on...

Self-Hugging

Humans need to be touched. Classic (and distressing) experiments by René Spitz and Harry Harlow demonstrated that without touch as infants, behavior goes terribly awry. We need affection.¹

As I'm writing this, staying at home is legally enforced in most states to control the spread of COVID-19. One group who may be suffering are those who are single and have no pets. What can they do for self-care?

I'd better be clear. I've been treated for depression for years. There's no shame in that. If you're feeling depressed, contact your doctor. I know they're busy with COVID-19. But you're important. If your medical plan provides tele-health, use it. What I'm suggesting below may help, but it's not a prescription because I'm not a doctor.

Massage

I found it difficult to find authoritative research on whether massage helps depression. However, I did find some. The problem is that researchers still don't know what types of massage provide benefits. However, the researchers have found that massage, by and large, doesn't cause harm.

This isn't my field, so I'm going to link to a couple of videos that I feel safe in recommending. We're not talking about rubbing our faces and necks for fifteen seconds because (in my case) that unit test just won't pass. You need to take time for this, just as with any self-care.

Also, consider that yoga may also provide some affection-relief. There's a lot of binding/unbinding that is similar to massage.

• Tension Headache Relief with Simple Stretches - Ask Doctor Jo
• Physical Therapy: Instant Headache Relief In Seconds With Self Massage & Stretch Techniques
• Cleveland Clinic: Accupressure for Stress
• Self-Massage for Tension Headaches

Visualization

This is definitely in the "take it or leave it" category. There's lots of research showing that the brain doesn't generally differentiate between what it's actually experiencing and what is vividly imagined.²

Here's my idea: take ten minutes and imagine receiving a massage or a hug or whatever would help.

Vividly replay something you remember that gave you that warm, fuzzy, googly feeling in your gut.

If you want a guided visualization, you can search YouTube. My advice: keep it to ten minutes, and avoid anything that seems hokey or super new-agey to you. I've found that plain talk is often best.

Here are a couple of body scan meditations that I think are effective. And I'm breaking my own advice on the first one, because we're big Hagan Rampes fans in our house.

Dr Rampes practices Mindful Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

• Hagan Rampes - Body Scan (Short)

Ms Vidyamala Burch teaches meditation from practical, serious experience.

Following two life-changing events in the 1970’s, I now live with a chronic back condition due to spinal injuries and partial paraplegia. I also navigate the trickiness of managing a paralysed bowel and bladder. --website

• Vidyamala Burch - Body Scan Head To Feet
• The Way Of Mindfulness Week 2 - Body Scan (breath-based) By Vidyamala <= Personal favorite

Finally

In major crises, despite what we often think, people come together. We don't (usually) become raving, selfish animals. The paradox of COVID-19 is that the healthiest thing for everyone is to not come together, but stay apart. But remember:

Social distancing does not require social isolation

Hug yourself.

References

Affection and Touch

• Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor - Wikipedia
• Infant stimulation program | therapy | Britannica
• US Experiment on infants withholding affection | St. Paul's Collegiate (Values Exchange Community)
• The importance of touch in development
• How Important Is Physical Contact with Your Infant? - Scientific American
• History Module: The Devastating Effects of Isolation on Social Behaviour
• René Spitz - Wikipedia

Massage

• Massage therapy for the treatment of depression: a systematic review - Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE): Quality-assessed Reviews - NCBI Bookshelf
• Microsoft Word - AAMT-Research-Report-6
• Yoga clinical research review - ScienceDirect
• Does Massage Therapy Help Depression- Beating The Blues
• Affective Massage Therapy

And a video about whether accupuncture (not massage) really works.

• Does Acupuncture Even Work? - YouTube

Isolation

• Happiness Lab - Coronovirus Episode 1: Beat Your Isolation Loneliness

It's relatively easy to get the technology running to work from home. The hard part is the doing. Don't beat yourself up! Try this tiny tip on...

Gratitude

Honestly, it can be hard to feel good about work, especially when it's upended. But I'll always remember attending a talk given by prolific writer Isaac Asimov, who said, "I think if you're going to do something for eight hours a day, you should feel good and be proud of it."

There's solid research showing that gratitude is A) a skill, B) challenging, and C) highly beneficial to our health and well-being.

When Is Your Work Day Over?

Here's a small routine to try out.

1. When your work day ends--whenever that is--it's not over until you've physically written down one thing you're grateful for.
2. Relive that thing. Savor it. Take a full minute.

I'm not saying you won't have days that are crap and you're glad they're over. I'm saying you get to choose how you transition to the next part of your day. Spare yourself, your spouse, your kids the barrel of awful. Tell them the truth; maybe it was rough, but there was something to be grateful for.

Don't let your past control you. Take a minute for one good thing.

Finally

Stop the comparisons to others. You're not more or less grateful than someone else. The worst kinds of reference points are other people. How grateful are you today?

References

(taken from the terrific, free Yale course The Science of Well-Being)

Gratitude

Emmons et al. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of personality and social psychology, 84(2), 377.

This paper tells us that gratitude - counting the good things in our lives - makes us happy

Seligman et al. (2005). Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interventions. American Psychologist, 60(5):410-21

This paper explores several happiness interventions and tells us gratitude interventions can increase happiness

Barton et al. (2015). Linking financial distress to marital quality: The intermediary roles of demand/withdraw and spousal gratitude expressions. Personal Relationships, 22, 536–549.

This paper tells us being grateful can help us through difficult times (as seen in the case of marriage)

Grant & Gino (2010). A little thanks goes a long way: Explaining why gratitude expressions motivate prosocial behavior. Journal of personality and social psychology, 98(6), 946.

This paper tells us receiving gratitude makes us feel valued and motivates us to be more generous

It's relatively easy to get the technology running to work from home. The hard part is the doing. Don't beat yourself up! Try this tiny tip on...

Staying Healthy (Food)

I'm not a nutritionist, so please make sure what I'm suggesting makes sense for you and your body.

Changing to remote work can easily trigger different eating behaviors, healthy and unhealthy. For me, those changes are

• What food is available?
• How easily can I get to it?

As I'm writing this, we are of course in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has changed what people can find at grocery stores, let alone when then can buy. It's also changing people's relationship with food.

Take Stock of Your Stock - and Junk

This will only take a minute:

1. Write down all the healthy snacks and drinks you can think of that are in the house. Got it? Do it first, really. You need all those healthy snacks in your head before moving on.
2. Next, write down all the junk food. Notice I'm not judging what's healthy and junk. That's up to you.
3. Finally, get up and find where those foods reside. In the fridge, on a counter, next to your computer, squirreled away under your son's or daughter's (or your) bed. Wherever.

You now have a reasonably accurate picture of how you think about eating. After all, you bought it or allowed it to be bought. You put it there, or allowed it to stay there.

What's Easier? The Banana or the Banana Moon Pie?

Did you find a pattern of where healthy vs junk were located? Was it easier to grab a bag of chips than a bag of wasabi chickpeas?

Whatever's closest is what you'll eat. Your body craves. Overriding that craving take effort. Brain effort. Your body hates brain effort.

Pick one--just one, for now--healthy snack or drink that can stay on your desk for a day. If there's any other snack on your desk, put it in a closet. Now sit at your desk and say to yourself five times:

When I crave a snack, I'll have you, right there! Then I'll smile, take a break, and replace you.

That's it. That's your routine for the next week. Healthy snack on desk, imagine the plan five times, eat, repeat.

Finally

We're still making use of behavioral science. In this case:

1. Make it easy
2. Imagine the positive outcome before imagining the negative. Always this order.
3. Celebrate little victories

Be curious. Will you have the healthy snack today or not? If not, what can you do to make it easier, or more attractive?

Don't punish yourself. Coach yourself.

References

• Kahneman Fast And Slow Thinking Explained
• The Habits Guide: How to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones