Mental health experts provide tips on how to best handle isolation when testing positive for COVID
CENTRAL COAST, Calif.- Experts are sharing advice on how to handle the mental health impact of isolating after a positive COVID-19 test.
Those who test positive for COVID are required to be isolated.
The feeling of isolation could impact on mental well being.
“It's very common to feel cabin fever,” said Santa Barbara County Behavioral Wellness’ Chief Quality Care and Strategy Officer Suzanne Grimmesey. “It’s common to feel frustrated, to feel angry, to feel stressed, to feel worried about financial impact.”
Both Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties Behavioral Wellness said having those types of feelings are usual.
But there are ways to best handle isolation.
“Being able to reach out to our loved ones, our friends, our family,” said SLO County Behavioral HEalth Department’s Shannon Jensen “I think that is important to reduce the isolation.”
One is to keep busy by learning something new.
Whether that’s baking, drawing, meditating and more.
“It is easy to feel we don’t have control over things when guidelines tell us we have to stay quarantining,” said Grimmesey. “So we must focus on what we can control.”
Going to your backyard isolated is another option.
“To practice some mindfulness, listen to the trees blow, breathe in that fresh air, listen to the birds sing, and not interact with others,” said Jensen-Best. “And good to have those moments on getting outside your house.
Both counties say quarantining is temporary and self-care is important.
“It's important, I think, to always remember the long term impact of any traumatic event,” said Grimmesey. “Which most certainly can be- the diagnosis and then the isolation. The long term effects come from our experience from the event. not the event itself.”
“Also it is so important that people know that they can reach out to mental health providers,” said Jensen-Best.”We are still available by tele-medicine. we still have things like hotlines. which are great resources.”
For resources on how to cope during quarantining for Santa Barbara County, click here. For San Luis Obispo County, click here.
