Isolation and Confinement - Learning from the experts <ul><li>establish structure</li><li>be intentional and love others</li><li>use this time for self-reflection and relaxation</li></ul><ul><li>do one thing a day that makes you happy</li><li>brighten up your space</li><li>try to meditate</li></ul><ul><li>Keep communicating with loved ones and strangers too</li><li>Prioritise cooperation, respect and tolerance</li><li>Use the opportunity to bond through hardship</li><li>Take control of your circumstances in small ways</li><li>Have a back-up plan</li><li>Make yourself useful</li><li>Make enjoyable plans for your free time</li><li>Take time to appreciate nature</li><li>Learn to appreciate the value of community, rather than possessions</li></ul><ul><li>Maintain your own personal routine, whatever it is, especially your sleep/wake cycle; don’t stay up really late or lie-in for long periods if this is not your regular routine – disruption will induce biological change and mood swings.</li><li>Exercise outside if you can and breathe the cleaner air. When inside, keep your private space, however small, and establish boundaries.</li><li>Have others respect your space and likewise respect theirs. It’s a matter of controlling the controllable.</li><li>Don’t sweat the small things either; focusing on minor issues can lead to pettiness. Slow down; there is no rush and you will see and hear more.</li><li>Satisfy that human need to connect with nature: care for animals, do gardening, keep plants and grow seeds.</li><li>Keep communicating with friends and family outside the home, but not exclusively, as this behaviour excludes those immediately around you.</li><li>Make an effort to be present; dine together; talk more; keep a calendar of things to do and look forward to doing them.</li><li>Plan ahead for future trips so you have a focus when normality is resumed. Read more, even books you think you’re not interested in! Learn something new.</li><li>Exercise inside; yoga is good. Vitally, satisfy that human intrinsic need to connect with nature: care for animals, do gardening, keep plants and grow seeds.</li></ul><ul><li>use mental imagery: "If so, you are using a technique that has helped many people survive prison. Edith Bone, a professor of medicine and a translator who spoke six languages fluently, constructed an abacus out of stale bread and made an inventory of her sprawling vocabulary while imprisoned in Hungary after World War II. Hussain Al-Shahristani, Saddam Hussein’s former chief scientific adviser, spent a decade in solitary confinement at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. He survived, according to the BBC, by “taking refuge in a world of abstractions, making up mathematical problems, which he then tried to solve.” He is now Iraq’s minister of higher education and scientific research. While imprisoned in a German concentration camp during World War II, the Russian Jewish mathematics professor Jakow Trachtenberg watched as his fellow prisoners “gave up hope and died even before being sent to their death.” To survive, he developed an innovative method of performing rapid mental calculation, known today as the Trachtenberg system."</li></ul>