Here we are at lockdown five. Now I’ve got a good story to tell you. Tuesday morning all these series of early morning phone calls from my family and I was on a 7:30 am work meeting, and I kind of have that feeling something’s happening. Know, that dreaded feeling, heavy stomach and you know that something’s just not quite right.

Well, it turns out that a family member was on their way to the hospital by ambulance and as the family healthcare worker, I’m the one who keeps everyone updated on everyone’s health and makes sure that people are generally being taken care of. Now, thankfully, I’m very grateful that I was allowed to go into the emergency department, as the one designated support person.

And of course, once a Covid negative test result came back, there was some breathing issues, so they needed to rule out that Covid thing first, which I completely understand. Now I could tell you something, she needed to be admitted, but there were very few beds available right now, and the hospital staff, who are doing an amazing job, by the way, they’re all completely run off their feet.

Now they rang around number of other hospitals in the network and they tried to get a bed, but ended up keeping her where she was, as it was just too difficult to get transferred. Now, the reason I’m telling you this is, is that while we never want to have to go to hospital right now, you really, you just don’t want to be there.

So since then, as we know, we’re all back in lockdown and unless it’s end-of-life support visitors, they’re just not allowed. Now, I really want you to stay healthy, and well in your homes during this time and lockdown while it’s not something that many of us particularly enjoy, it is an opportunity to reset some of our routines.

Now, I know I’ve talked to you about this before, but it’s your routine, your daily habits that are your biggest determinants of your long-term health that you can change. Now, these small little daily choices that you can make build-up, they build up over time, either towards or away from your health goals. So I want to encourage you to think about what you can do.

What’s in your power to make some changes or shake things up a bit and take care of yourself during this short step away from our regular routine. Now, for some people lockdown could be an opportunity to do an at-home retreat. Maybe you can focus on doing some mindfulness sessions each day, or maybe you can add in a little extra movement. Maybe you can come up with your own personal power mantra, helps you feel strong or feel motivated, full focused, or maybe that’s not your thing!

Maybe journaling would be better for you, or maybe just simply making the decision to drink a little more water each day maybe that’s, what’s achievable for you right now and the key thing is just one thing. So you can sustain, that you can commit to and do it over and over again until it’s your normal.

The next thing I wanted to talk to you about, is how you can stay better connected during lockdown with your loved ones. Now, three things you can do to stay entertained, connected, and engaged with others are. Make a playlist for a friend and share it with them, we can do this on an app such as Spotify or an MP3 list to share, or you’re feeling really old school and do it on a cassette tape.

Next, you could send a favorite photo of someone, with a caption and share a fun memory that you have with them. Now, my personal favorite, which I thought I would share with you today is to make a random lockdown inspired video, capturing, all those feelings that we’ve collectively experienced during these somewhat crazy times. So I hope we can help you laugh with some bad karaoke.

Well, maybe we’ll just inspire you to make your own. Oh, you can lip sync if you’re a little shy. Now, on a slightly more serious note, if you have someone who needs some extra support during lockdown, or if they’re alone, isolated or stuck in a hospital, we made a couple of ebooks last year. One on supporting yourself with self-care through lock down and the other being on supporting a family member or friend in the hospital or an aged care facility.

Now let us know if you would like a copy and we can arrange it for you. Alternatively, we’ve also got outcome crisis five-day self-meditation mindfulness program that you’re more than welcome to have sending you lots of love during lockdown, moving forward to seeing you soon.