Emotional Ups And Downs During Lockdown Are Normal

Emotional ups and downs during lockdown are common and recurring. Many people experience mood swings during the day. They go from feeling motivated to feeling discouraged. They shift from a sense of calm to experiencing a pain that seems to make their stomachs writhe and bring out all sorts of negative thoughts.

This is completely normal. However, you should not nurture all that negativity by starting to ask yourself if you are suffering from some form of disorder, such as bipolar disorder. This psychological disorder is about much more than just changes in one’s mood.

What is happening to all of us is pretty much that we are being exposed to a completely unknown situation. It is an unpredictable scenario where our brain, body and emotions all react together at the same time. We should, of course, expect some of these emotional reactions.

While this may surprise you, this context is not new to some people. Ask an astronaut and they will tell you what quarantine is. Likewise, prisoners who spend months or years will be locked up inside a prison.

Some children with immune disorders also live a large part of their lives locked up at home. And last but not least, the fact that we can not forget scientists who can spend months in closed stations in places like Antarctica.

Lawrence Palinkas at the University of Southern California is an expert who researches topics such as this. His studies in psychosocial adaptation in extreme environments give us relevant data to be able to understand what we are experiencing right now.

Lockdown has a major psychological impact on humans and it begins to become particularly apparent after 15 to 20 days. This is when we suffer the most from emotional ups and downs. Let’s analyze it below.

Emotional ups and downs during lockdown

It is easy to get up in the morning and start to feel discouraged. As soon as you open your eyes on a new day, you may experience temporary disorientation.

For a few seconds, you do not know what day it is and then, boom! One’s mind remembers it all… the pandemic, the lockdown, the physical and social isolation and the uncertainty as to whether one’s life will return to normal.

When eating breakfast, you usually exchange your first words with family and friends. You think about what to do that day  and it provides some much needed energy and motivation.

After a few hours, and for no particular reason, however, a fog seems to emerge, which makes everything dull and blurry. Your motivation begins to fade and sadness obscures everything. Why is this happening to you? Are you, perhaps, developing some form of mental health problem?

Let’s dive deeper into this to discover why these emotional ups and downs during lockdown occur.

Even if you want to be that, you will not be okay all the time

It does not matter if you have stimulating activities in your daily routines. It does not matter if you are an optimistic person who always has words of encouragement for yourself and others.

We all, without exception, will experience some emotional ups and downs during the lockdown. It is an illusion to try to be okay and positive 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Therefore, while this may sound a little demotivating, you will need to deal with negative emotions for a while. They will be unpleasant and unwanted roommates who will visit you occasionally and who you will have to accept and understand.

Do not try to impose other feelings on yourself

When you feel discouraged or frustrated, do not avoid these feelings. Do not become obsessed with getting rid of them and try to be cheerful. The emotional world does not work that way.

The emotional ups and downs during lockdown are also a safety valve for your brain, as this body needs the everyday life that it used to have.

When one perceives a change as drastic as the one we are all experiencing right now, a warning pops up in our brains. This turns into stress and fear – emotions regulated by one’s tonsils. Therefore, when these feelings arise, it is impossible to change them to others.

What should be done about it? First, one  should accept them,  and most of all, one should say to oneself,  “It is normal to feel this way. It is a new and unexpected situation. The only thing I have to try to do is make sure that this negative feeling does not get control. I accept it. I understand it and I let go of it ”.

Look for “channels” to achieve mental peace

Everyone experiences emotional ups and downs during lockdown. However, certain types of individuals are much more vulnerable to these emotional processes.

Anyone who has experienced depression or who suffers from another type of psychological disorder or mental health problem will have greater difficulty trying to regulate these conditions. It is therefore important that psychological, medical and social support is available to these individuals.

If we put these more unique situations aside, emotional ups and downs in most cases, as we have pointed out before, are completely normal and you can handle them.

Steps to deal with one’s emotional ups and downs during lockdown

• You need to understand that instead of classifying these emotions as either negative or positive, or right or wrong,  then you should know what to do with these emotions. Obviously, you can not feel good and be productive 100% of the time, but you  can  be calm through all this.
• One way to achieve this is by finding channels to connect you with yourself. Metaphorically speaking, it’s about keeping  your feet on the ground, your mind focused and your heart in balance.
• Activities such as talking to family members or friends that can help vent their emotions are therefore helpful. Likewise, spending time with creative tasks that make one relaxed, such as cooking, painting, creating or writing.

You should not worry too much about being productive during this time. Remember that it is time to take care of yourself and to be in a state of survival, to some degree. 

In order to achieve this, you will need to understand the wide range of emotions that you may experience during the day. By doing so, you will allow yourself to successfully get through this difficult situation!