Finding HopeQuotes That Helped Me (Hope Edition)
Posted on January 16, 2021
There’s something about new year that always makes me feel hopeful.
I think that many of us move through life as if it’s a story but in reality, there aren’t many clear endings and beginnings and so we often have to create them for ourselves. They help us make sense of things; there’s something helpful and healing about being able to put a difficult chapter behind you and start fresh. 2020 was a lot so I think it’s been good for a lot of us to create some mental distance from all that happened even though 2021 has already had some previously unimaginable moments.
As the events in Washinton D.C. have shown, we have no way of knowing, of course, whether things will be better, of knowing what is to come, but I still have to have hope for the next twelve months, for the future. I think that’s probably one of the most powerful tools we have in general, but also specifically in this period of time: the ability to have hope, even when what we’re facing feels so big and so insurmountable. If nothing else, there is always hope, something that these quotes remind me of.
“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.” – Anne Lamott
“Hope is a choice of courage.” – Terri Guillemets
“The future is always beginning now.” – Mark Strand
“You can’t wring your hands and roll up your sleeves at the same time.” – Pat Schroeder
“People are made of flesh and blood and a miracle fibre called courage.” – Mignon McLaughlin
“But all I could think of was how when nothing made sense and hadn’t for ages, you just have to grab onto anything you feel sure of.” –
“Hope never abandons you, you abandon it.” – George Weinberg
“Tomorrow is fresh, with no mistakes in it.” – L.M. Montgomery
“Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.” –
“While the heart beats, hope lingers.” –
“We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Hope rises like a phoenix from the ashes of shattered dreams.” – S.A. Sachs
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein
“The present is the laboratory of the future.” – James Lendall Basford
“When you’re at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.” –
“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” –
“Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it.” –
“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.” –
“We need hope, or else we cannot endure.” –
“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” –
“The birds of hope are everywhere – listen to them sing.” – Terri Guillemets
“And in today already walks tomorrow.” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” –
“Hope was tricky like water. Somehow it always found a way in.” –
“Hope is a force of nature. Don’t let anyone tell you different.” –
“There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t.” –
“Sometimes good things fall apart, so better things can fall together.” –
“Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future.” – Robert H. Schuller
“Hope is the silver lining of dreams.” – Terri Guillemets
“Once you choose hope, anything’s possible.” – Christopher Reeve
I hope that reading these has given you some hope, just like they’ve given me. As I said, none of us can say for sure whether this year will be better than the last but we have to have hope. And we have reason to hope: Trump is leaving and Biden will be inaugurated; the COVID-19 vaccine is being administered around the world; people have come together, both in the wider sense and in the smaller, more local sense, something that will hopefully continue; the new year is an opportunity for a fresh start… And those are the most obvious things. 2020 was a year unlike any other most of us have experienced and I have to hope that 2021 will be better. I don’t think I – we – have any other choice.
And A(nother) Week In My Life (In Lockdown)
Posted on August 29, 2020
I hadn’t intended to do another of these posts so soon but again, when I looked back at my diary at the end of the week, it felt like another very different week in my experience of lockdown. I guess I’m just trying to represent my experience of this time – and the variation within it depending on both the internal and external circumstances – as accurately as possible, for myself as much as anyone else.
The week in this post started on Monday 3rd August and ended on Sunday 9th August.
MONDAY
I was up by eight thirty and already at work. I planned out my week and then more specifically my day in my bullet journal before clearing my email inbox of rubbish and attending to the rest.
Next, I got to work on the ‘Back To Life‘ music video. Richard had sent me the first draft and I went through it clip by clip, making notes on what I liked, what I didn’t, any changes I wanted to make, any suggestions I had (all against their time codes). It’s not the most fun job in the world: staring at your own face for hours can get pretty draining, whether you’re a self conscious person or not, but I got it done and sent my notes back to Richard.
My main plan for the day was a writing session with Richard but I had a bit of time before our start time so I did some work on my next blog post before setting up our Zoom meeting. We’re working on multiple projects at the moment and we’d planned to work on some of my stuff that day. There was one song we’ve been working on for a couple of sessions now but while I liked the sound of the production, it just didn’t feel like it was the right mood for the song. So I made the slightly terrifying suggestion of starting over and coming at it from a different angle. That’s what we ended up doing, using different reference tracks and instrumentation. It sounded so much better by the time we called it a day.
We also spent a bit of time working on a second song, creating the basic shape of the track and deciding what sort of instrumentation fitted the mood of the song. So it was a very productive session, a very productive four hours.
We hung up and I stretched out on the sofa, exhausted. I love writing sessions, whether they’re focussed more on the song itself or the production, but I do find them tiring and especially so when we’re working over Zoom. It’s just that bit harder to translate your ideas to the other person when the time lag complicates your communication or you can’t point to something on their screen and so on. I’m grateful that we can have our sessions at all but I do find them harder than face-to-face sessions and greatly look forward to it being safe to have those again.
I spent the afternoon and evening working on various blog posts with the TV on in the background. It was nice and gentle but I was still being productive, which definitely helps with my mental health and in turn, my ability to manage this period of time in general. Then I did some catching up with my diary before getting ready for bed.
I was just finishing up when I got a text from Richard with an MP3 attached, the song we’d spent most of our session working on. After our initial struggle with it, I was amazed by how good it sounded, how perfectly the new production fitted with the song. I went to bed, excited and proud of what we’d achieved.
TUESDAY
Me and Mum got up early and headed for the nearby woods for a dog walk with one of our friends. She’s just recently gotten a rescue puppy (who is utterly gorgeous) and as well as seeing each other and catching up, she wanted some advice from us as (previous) dog owners. I had been really looking forward to it but I was also anxious about going out (a constant anxiety still) and then I almost had a meltdown, triggered by difficulties with managing my mask and my glasses. I don’t know if any of you fellow glasses wearers have struggled with this but my glasses rest right where the wire of the mask is and I constantly battle with keeping them both functional and at least somewhat comfortable. I’ve since bought a mask that doesn’t have a wire as my glasses keep the top in place but for this particular walk, I ended up doing a lot of it without my glasses, which (had everything been normal, wouldn’t have bothered me all that much) just added another layer of stress because I really had to focus on where I was putting my feet – I’m so short sighted that even the ground is very blurry without my glasses.
I hate sounding so negative over what was a really lovely walk – it was just an unexpectedly difficult start. It was wonderful to see this friend again and it was so nice to have some dog time, especially puppy play and cuddles. I’ve missed our dog so much since we said goodbye to him in January but I doubt any of us will be ready for another dog for a good while so this was a nice compromise. My anxieties aside, it was a very pleasant way to start the day, although I was a bit knackered afterwards. Exercise is an area that’s really suffered for me throughout lockdown so I think it was a bit of shock to the system.
We came home and I ended up having a pretty quiet day. I mainly worked on catching up with my diary – my Moby Dick – and spending time with my Mum. We’re usually pretty independent during the day and then come together in the evenings but that evening I had a movie date with a group of friends.
At seven, we started our video call and ended up spending an hour catching up and just chatting, which was really lovely. It’s been a long time since our last date for various reasons so there was a lot to catch up on and I think we’d all just missed each other’s company. Speaking for myself, I know that I’d really missed them and was just delighted to see their faces again.
Eventually we stopped rambling and got into the movie. We’ve been binging the Studio Ghibli films and this time, we watched Laputa: Castle in the Sky. I absolutely loved it. I loved the story and it was just so beautiful – I mean, they’re all beautifully animated but this one seemed particularly stunning. It’s definitely at the top of my list of Studio Ghibli films. We talked about it a bit afterwards and while we’d had differing opinions on the last film (Kiki’s Delivery Service), we all really enjoyed this one.
When we said goodbye and hung up, it was getting pretty late so I started getting ready to go to bed. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it already but over the last couple of months, I’ve been struggling with really bad pain in my arms, from shoulder to finger tips. That night, my right arm and shoulder were really, really hurting and even though my Mum gave me a massage, it was still really bad and made it difficult to get to sleep.
WEDNESDAY
I slept really badly because my shoulder was so painful. Every time I rolled over and put my weight on it, I woke up and had to readjust my position and then get back to sleep again. It wasn’t a restful night and I really struggled to wake up. As soon as my brain was fully awake, I felt the anxiety kick in; I just felt so overwhelmed by how much I feel like I have to get done before university starts, in whatever form that takes.
The pain in my shoulder only got worse as I used my arm so my Mum worked out a schedule of painkillers to keep the pain at a minimum and keep me using it so I wouldn’t seize up or start compensating with the other shoulder. It’s been a problem for a while but since it’s only getting worse, we decided to call my GP the next morning and try to get a Zoom appointment.
I did some admin for the upcoming release of my new single, ‘Back To Life,’ and then settled in to work on my photo albums. After finally finishing the organisation of my photo library, I’d selected the photos I wanted for my physical photo albums (which were about eighteen months out of date) and sent them off to be printed. They’d arrived that morning and so I went through them, slowly getting them in chronological order. It took all afternoon and I still had to put them into the albums but it was very exciting to be so close to finishing such a mammoth job.
Early evening, I did some more admin work, replying to some emails, and listening to some songs a friend had sent me to give feedback on. I’d left it a bit late in the day to do the whole lot but I managed to do an initial listen to all of them to get the overall vibe and an in-depth listen of a couple, making detailed notes of my thoughts and suggestions. So it was a productive evening.
Then me and Mum had dinner in front of The Mentalist, which we’ve been rewatching for a couple of weeks now. I love the show but I particularly love its second life, with the FBI team rather than the CBI team. *Spoiler Alert* We’d reached the episode where Vega dies, where they attend her funeral, and Jane and Lisbon discuss the future of their relationship when they work such dangerous jobs. It’s a heartbreaking episode and even though we’ve both seen it multiple times before, we both sat there with tears streaming down our faces. What can I say, I get attached to fictional characters. Like, very attached.
It had been pretty hot all day so it took me a while to get to sleep. I don’t do well in the heat so I was dreading the predicted heatwave.
THURSDAY
One of my cats, Lucy (or Queen Lucy as we often call her due to her being the cat we’ve had the longest and therefore the cat that rules the house), woke me up at four, yowling loudly as she played with a toy. At almost any other time of day, it would’ve been very cute but at four am, not so much. It took me ages to get back to sleep.
I got up at nine and finished listening to the songs I’d started working through the night before. I wrote down all my feedback for the remaining songs and then listened to them all again to see if any new thoughts came to me. I also included questions about various lyrics and production choices, challenging the meanings and choices so that everything would be really tight and cohesive. I was deliberately picky, as my friend had asked me to be (sorry, I’m being deliberately vague about who it is because I don’t want to announce anyone’s project before they have). As good friends, they trust my critique, rather than feeling like I’m being critical; we’ve worked together a lot so we trust each other to just want the song to be the best song possible.
That done, I spent a couple of hours catching up with my diary (I’m just so behind at the moment) and then had my therapy session at four. We spent most of the hour just catching up on the week and talking about how I’d managed the challenges and the difficulties that had come up. With the pandemic, we’re doing A LOT of distress tolerance. I do wish we could move forward and work on some of my long standing issues but from past experience, I know that when you start to unravel some of those things, you often feel worse before you feel better and I just don’t think I can handle that right now. I’m just about managing to cope day to day and I really don’t want to make things worse for myself when I’ve worked so hard to even get to this point with the pandemic going on.
I FaceTimed with one of my parents while my Mum had the Zoom appointment with the doctor. I still struggle with talking to doctors, I’m still figuring out how to do Zoom meetings with new or less than well known people, and I struggle with communication in general. So me and Mum talked about everything we wanted the doctor to know and then she did the call. She was on the computer for a long time but when she came back, she did have some good news although a large chunk of the plan does involve waiting, which I’m not super thrilled about. But my doctor has adjusted the medication plan a bit (she’ll prescribe me something stronger if it continues to get worse but for now, we’re sticking with over the counter stuff to avoid extra side effects) and referred me to occupational rheumatology where they’ll probably fit me for support braces or refer me on to physiotherapy or both. But that’s unlikely to happen for a while. So pain medication, massage, and trying to build or improve habits that at the very least don’t make the pain worse. I’m limited exercise wise by not being able to swim but we’ve set up a rough badminton court in the garden to allow for some gentle exercise, especially for my arms and shoulders.
Me and Mum had an early dinner with The Mentalist. *Spoiler Alert* We’d finally reached the final episode where Jane and Lisbon get married and it’s so lovely to see them all so happy, especially Jane, after going through so much sadness and struggle. I wasn’t convinced by their relationship at first but then I fell in love with it and watching the wedding scene usually results with me grinning like an idiot or actually crying at how sweet it is.
I was just thinking about going to bed when Richard texted me to remind me that we were announcing the release of ‘Back To Life‘ the next day, which had somehow completely slipped my mind. I swear, the pandemic has completely messed with my head – life pre-pandemic feels a bit like a dream and the way we did things feels kind of hazy. So suddenly I was in a panic about what to say when I announced the release of the song, especially one with the title ‘Back To Life’ during a pandemic (something that’s been bothering me for a long time). So I ended up spending more than an hour (at least) figuring out how to say what I wanted to say and how to say it in the best way possible.
I finally got to bed around midnight but it was so hot that, even after I discarded my duvet, it still took me a long time to get to sleep.
FRIDAY
Lucy was gracious enough to let me sleep until five this time before waking me up, chasing a toy around my room, and then I couldn’t get back to sleep as hard as I tried. It was very frustrating.
When Mum got up, we had breakfast and rewatched *Spoiler Alert* the wedding scene in the final episode of The Mentalist, grinning like the sappy idiots we are. No regrets. It was a nice, positive way to start the day, watching characters you love get their happily ever after.
I spent the morning working on my blog post about JK Rowling’s recent transphobic comments and how complicated it is to reconcile a childhood hero with the problematic person they are in the present. I’m absolutely not condoning what she’s said or making excuses for her – if you’ve read the post, you’ll know that I refuse to support her while she makes such insensitive, harmful statements – but I also wanted to comment on some of the other connected issues. While her transphobia is without question the most important issue here, there are multiple points within the overall problem, like how her prejudices may have bled into the books and how difficult it is to make sense of these two different versions of her. I wanted to explore as many of these thoughts as possible.
It was so hot by the middle of the day that I felt like I was melting; I didn’t want any part of my body to touch any other part. It was horrible. Thank god for the fan I bought a few years back. I was reluctant because it was pretty expensive but having had several unbearably hot summers in a row, it’s been amazing; I would’ve been unable to function without it. I’ve only just been functional with it.
Early afternoon, I had a Zoom session with Richard and we mapped out a more detailed plan for releasing all the content around ‘Back To Life‘ before working on some of his music. We’ve always been a well matched pair because while his strengths are more musical, mine are more lyrical and so we’ve always been able to support each other really well. That’s one of the things that’s always felt really special about our working relationship.
Eventually I got too tired to do much good, so we scheduled another session and I had a rest, doing some blog writing with the TV on in the background.
In the evening, one of my parents – who, I guess, is in our bubble – came over and, while I don’t think you have to social distance if you’re in a bubble, we had dinner and hung out, still keeping a certain level of distance. The three of us are continuing to remain pretty isolated but it still feels sensible to stay somewhat distanced for the most part.
At seven o’clock, my alarm went off and I posted my announcement on my social media accounts…
That done, I felt able to be more present and enjoy the evening and although I was really tired, it was really nice to hang out with my parents. With times such as they are, I never take those moments for granted, especially since I’m not able to see all of my parents yet, together or apart. We don’t have to DO anything in particular; it’s just so nice to be together and talk face to face. It’s still so ingrained in me to greet people with a hug or squeeze their hand that I have to actively struggle against those automatic motions but it doesn’t make me want to burst into tears anymore. I’m just really looking forward to being able to do it again.
When she left, me and Mum settled down with Rizzoli and Isles, another show we haven’t watched in years, and I did some blog post writing. I absolutely agree with the philosophy that our productiveness isn’t tied to our worth as people – I wouldn’t debate that for a second – but I’ve also discovered that being productive plays a massive part in managing my mental health, even if it’s as simple as watching a movie that I’ve wanted to watch for a while but not gotten around to doing so. I guess it just depends on your definition of being productive – I don’t necessarily equate it with ‘producing’ something; it’s just doing something that I intended to do. If I intend to have a quiet and restful day and I do, then I have been productive.
SATURDAY
I woke up far too early, which was annoying because I was still tired and sleepy but I definitely enjoyed the cool and the quiet. It’s my favourite time of day – before the world wakes up and starts rushing around, making so much noise – and we were due for another really hot day so I relished the cool air.
I had as quick a scroll through my social media as I could manage, having not been on it for a couple of days (apart from posting about ‘Back To Life‘). As I’ve said previously – during this time – it’s been better for my mental health to stay away from social media but then I do miss seeing what my friends and family are up to. So I’m trying to find a balance and for the most part, I think I’m doing okay.
That done, I settled into the living room and got to work, putting Friends on low for background noise. I posted my blog post about exam results and then spent the rest of the morning working on other blog posts.
By the middle of the day, I was really struggling to do anything because it was just so hot. I felt like I was melting and my brain seemed to be functioning very slowly, not unlike my laptop, which was definitely overheating with the fan whirring loudly. So I decided to take a break and work on something that required much less movement and brain power: slotting my newly organised photos into my albums. I also used the time to watch a film from my To Watch list – one of my New Year goals was to consume more new content rather than just familiar favourites and the lockdown has a good time to do that. It’s been good for me in other areas too. I’ve been challenging my songwriting skills and trying to write from the perspectives of different characters instead of just from my own life experiences and finding new characters and stories that inspire me has made it a really enjoyable practice.
I ended up watching Fantasy Island (mainly because I love Maggie Q), where a group of people arrive on a tropical island after winning a competition, their prize being to have their greatest fantasy fulfilled. I’d seen quite a few negative reviews of it but personally, I really enjoyed it. It wasn’t life changing but it was interesting and the twists and turns were cool. It was good entertainment and made for a mentally restful afternoon.
In the evening, me and my Mum had dinner together with a couple of episodes of Rizzoli and Isles and I spent a couple of hours working on blog posts. As usual, I put off going to bed, partly because my room was so hot. Again, thank god for my fan.
SUNDAY
I slept long and deep, a welcome experience after months of restless sleep at best. I did have some strange dreams, but not disturbing ones. One included a storm cloud on fire, which was incredibly beautiful – much better than some of my previous dreams. I didn’t get up until almost ten but then I dived into the day, intent on being as productive as possible.
I finished my previous week-in-the-life post and then had a music lesson with one of my parents. We worked on the chords for two of the songs I’m working on and then had a long conversation about reharmonisation and how that works. I learnt about that during my BA by only briefly and that was several years ago so, with the Musical Language module coming up, I definitely needed a refresher. We might need to go over it again just to give me a quick reminder but I feel like I’m pretty solid on the basic principles. So that was good to do.
By the time we finished, it was so hot that I didn’t want to move. I lay on the sofa and watched the second series of Liar. It had been airing when we went into lockdown and it just slipped my mind; it only came back to me a month or so later and by that time, it was gone from ITV On Demand. I’d resigned myself to never knowing how it ended but then it popped up on Virgin On Demand. So I watched that through the heat of the day. It wasn’t the best show ever – I felt like there were quite a few inconsistencies and plot holes – but I was glad to see how it ended. Plus I used the time to continue adding the captions to the photos in my albums. So, considering the heat, I feel like I was pretty productive. Oh, and I also posted the first teaser for ‘Back To Life‘ on my social media.
We ended up eating dinner outside on the deck in the cool darkness and then we went inside to watch Rizzoli and Isles with some much appreciated ice cream. I kept working on the photo album captions, making it to March 2020. I was almost giddy with glee at being so close to the finish line.
That giddiness shot through the roof when I checked Instagram to see how the teaser was being received and saw that Desmond Child (writer of Bon Jovi’s ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ and Ricky Martin’s ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’ to name just two of his more famous songs) had liked it. I have no idea how he found it but it all but short-circuited my brain. I mean, he’s in the Songwriters Hall of Fame! So that was very, very cool.
This is the screenshot I sent to Richard…
It took me a long time to come down from that high so I didn’t get to bed until midnight. I’m really not doing well with this whole go-to-bed-early plan.
I’m always hesitant to say stuff like this – probably because of a leftover childhood superstition that I’ll jinx things – but I do feel like I’m coping better mentally, that I’ve found a way of managing things day to day. I mean, I’m still not able to read or focus on anything involving big chunks of new information for extended periods of time but generally, I feel like I’ve found a routine that’s working for me. I’m still really struggling emotionally but I don’t think that’s really going to change until it truly starts to feel safe again. The fear and anxiety is just a constant presence in my life that I try to manage, to varying degrees of success.
Sleeping and Dreaming in the Time of Covid-19
Posted on August 1, 2020
Since the pandemic began, many people seem to have been having trouble sleeping, from not getting enough to getting too much to having vivid and often scary dreams. It’s been well documented – scientifically and anecdotally via social media. I’ve had problems with fatigue for years but over the last several months, my struggles in the sleep department have dramatically increased and so I thought I’d do a bit of research into the subject and see how my experiences compare to those of others.
SLEEP
We all know that sleep is massively important to our wellbeing. It’s vital to the functioning of our immune systems, the health of our organs (especially our brains), and the maintenance of our mental health to name a few. The ideal amount of sleep ranges from person to person but most adults need seven to nine hours in order to perform at their best, with children and teenagers requiring even more. But during the pandemic, most people are getting far less than the amount they need, making it even more difficult to handle the stress and uncertainty that have become the norm over the last several months. Personally, I’ve spent much of the pandemic and lockdown either getting less than five hours sleep or getting nine hours but waking continuously and struggling to get back to sleep.
It’s not surprising that the pandemic has had this effect. The loss of time anchors like scheduled work hours, anxiety over you or your loved ones getting sick, economic instability, isolation, and increased screen time are all factors that are contributing to this surge in disturbed sleep and continuing lack of sleep can cause real problems. In the short term, it can become difficult to concentrate and make decisions and can contribute to mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. I’ve definitely experienced these effects (despite already struggling with anxiety and depression, they’ve both become much more significant and life altering since the pandemic began). In the long term, it can put you at risk for dramatic and dangerous health problems.
Fortunately, there has been a lot of research into sleep and the factors that affect it…
ADVICE ON IMPROVING YOUR SLEEP
- Keeping a routine – Setting times to get up and go to bed (and sticking to them) helps you to programme your brain and internal body clock, making it easier to get to sleep and wake up at normal times. Building other factors into your routine, such as relaxation techniques and turning off screens (ideally) ninety minutes before bed, can also aid with this.
- Reserve your bed for sleep only – With so many of us working or studying from home, it’s tempting to be comfortable and settle on our beds but that then makes it much harder to settle down and sleep because our brains have associated the space with thinking and processing rather than relaxing.
- Consistent exposure to natural light – Natural light is one of the triggers for our circadian rhythms (our sleep wake patterns) so making sure we get plenty of natural light helps our bodies to better regulate our sleep.
- Avoid naps if possible – We all know that naps make it harder to get to sleep at night because we’re less tired when it comes to bedtime but it’s very tempting when we’re having trouble sleeping. Of course, the problem then perpetuates itself. So avoiding naps altogether (or as much as possible) is the obvious solution to this. As someone who has struggled with energy, I know that sometimes naps do become unavoidable but it’s important to keep them short where possible and to avoid allowing it to become habit.
- Exercise – While many of our exercise habits have been disrupted, it’s still important to exercise and burn energy, something we all know helps us to unwind and sleep. There are lots of alternatives to going to the gym, from walking to home exercises (there are SO MANY on YouTube) to just doing physical jobs around the house. However, the closures of gyms have been problematic for those requiring specific types of exercise due to injuries or illnesses that affect movement. For example, weight bearing exercise is often very painful for me and so I have desperately missed being able to swim, my main form of exercise pre-lockdown.
- Reduce alcohol and caffeine – Both of these have been proven to disrupt our sleep and therefore many doctors and scientists are recommending avoiding these during this time when our sleep is already disrupted.
- Meditation or relaxation techniques – Many people have found these to be helpful when it comes to reducing stress and getting to sleep, before the pandemic and during. Apps like Calm are highly recommended with guided meditations and breathing exercises to aid with relaxation, mindfulness, and better sleep.
- Practice kindness and connection – Human connection (whether in the flesh or via technology) and positive actions have been proven to reduce stress and therefore aid relaxation and sleep. We all need space and alone time but it’s so important to avoid isolating ourselves, something that’s very easy to do when there are literal isolation procedures in place. Spending time with animals is also good here, especially if making conversation feels too overwhelming.
STRANGE DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES
Along with difficulty sleeping, a significant number of people have reported struggling with nightmares, or more nightmares than usual, and I’ve definitely experienced this phenomena. Here’s a few examples of the dreams I’ve been having:
- Walking on a deserted, desert-like planet (not dissimilar to pictures of the surface of Mars).
- My Mum having only one day left to live and the panic of having so little time left with her.
- Losing my dog, Lucky, in the London Underground and never being able to catch up to him as much as I shout for him.
- Being trapped in a packed London Underground tunnel, people pressing in on all sides (this is a recurring one).
- Various post apocalyptic scenarios.
- Walking about destroyed cities.
- Very vivid experiences of self harming.
- England being invaded and bombed and the house exploding around me.
- Breaking precious and fragile possessions.
- Trying to walk one way down a hugely busy street with endless amounts of unmasked people walking the other way, rushing past and bumping into me (another recurring one).
I also often wake up feeling unsettled and anxious, sweating from dreams that are already fading, disappearing before I can figure out what had happened in them.
There are multiple theories for why we dream but the most common seems to be that, while we’re sleeping and our consciousness is resting, our subconsciousness is processing the events of our day, the big events in our lives, our emotions, our stresses and anxieties, and so on. We’re all obviously dealing with elevated levels of stress and intense emotions during this time so it’s not surprising that our brains are working overtime trying to make sense of it all, producing vivid and often weird or disturbing dreams. Our brains are trying to process something that it has no context for.
While the exact cause and content of these dreams is still being debated, there’s a lot more research into why we feel like we’re dreaming more in the last several months. On average, we dream four to six times a night but most of the time, we simply don’t remember them; but due to the disturbed sleep that many of us are experiencing (caused by stress, massive changes to lifestyle, and social isolation to name a few), we’re waking up during our dreams and that’s why we’re remembering them. Therefore, it seems as though we’re having more dreams when really, we’re just remembering more of them.
If you’re interested in sharing your experiences of these types of dreams or learning about the dreams of others, a website, I Dream of Covid, has been set up to do just that. You can submit your own dreams and read through the dreams of others. It’s really fascinating.
Here is a fascinating interview with Dr. Deirdre Barrett, the assistant professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, about pandemic dreams. She obviously has a much greater understanding of dreaming and of these dreams and offers some valuable thoughts and advice. She’s also running a research study into these dreams that involves an open survey where you can share your experience of pandemic dreams, adding to her data if you feel comfortable doing so and want to help.
TIPS FOR MANAGING QUARANTINE DREAMS
Considering the fact that these dreams are most likely helping our brains (and therefore our entire beings) cope with this incredibly stressful, uncertain period of time, it’s not necessarily in our best interests to try and prevent or reduce these dreams. But, having said that, I’m pretty sure we’d all rather not have to experience them, remember them, or have them hang over us. So that leaves us with the option of attempting to avoid remembering them. Here are some tips that will hopefully help in that endeavour:
- Try to get better sleep – If you can sleep for longer periods without waking up, you’ll be less likely to remember the dreams you’re having. Hopefully the tips in the above section are helpful in regards to this.
- Do something positive or relaxing before going to bed – Going to bed with a positive and relaxed mindset before trying to sleep has been proven to improve our quality of sleep, so creating a nighttime routine including things that help put you in a good mental space is worth investing in. These things will differ for everyone: some people like to have a bath; some people like to take time to read; some people like to meditate or journal. I personally enjoy watching a favourite TV show with my family or going for a swim (whether this is currently possible is still uncertain).
- Avoid the news and social media before bed – Filling your head with scary images and upsetting information is obviously not going to help you relax. The resulting anxiety is likely to continue the cycle of sleep disruption and remembering the dreams you’re having, the exact opposite of what we’re trying to achieve here. It’s hard to ignore the compulsion to feel like you’re up to date but it’s a good habit to establish, in general as well as during the pandemic.
- Talk through your nightmares with someone you trust – These dreams can feel very disturbing and so talking them through with someone you trust can lessen the anxiety they cause or even dissipate the dream itself (if you can work through whatever it is that’s causing that specific dream). But even if that doesn’t happen, sharing what you’re going through can at least prevent you from feeling isolated by the experience because, as we’ve seen, many of us are having a very similar experience.
- Reach out to sleep experts or therapists – I don’t want to offer something I’m not qualified to comment on but many sleep experts and therapists specialising in sleep have been sharing resources online or offering consultations online. If you’re really struggling, professional help might be the most productive way to get your sleep back on track.
So here is what I’ve experienced and learned about sleeping and dreaming during the pandemic and subsequent lockdown. It’s been a really interesting blog post to put together. I hope it’s helpful and/or interesting and I wish you all sweet sleep and sweet dreams.
SOURCES
- https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-guidelines-covid-19-isolation
- https://thesleepdoctor.com/sleep-pandemic/
- https://www.helpguide.org/articles/sleep/sleep-needs-get-the-sleep-you-need.htm
- https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/sleep-and-tiredness/why-lack-of-sleep-is-bad-for-your-health/
- https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/sleep-and-tiredness/how-to-get-to-sleep/
- https://thesleepdoctor.com/2020/05/12/quarendreaming-why-your-pandemic-dreams-and-nightmares-are-so-weird-and-intense-and-what-to-do-about-it/
- https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/lockdown-coronavirus-dreams-vivid-strange-sleep-emotional-state-a9486206.html
- https://www.sleep.org/articles/how-often-dreams/
- https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/03/why-youre-having-pandemic-related-nightmares-and-how-to-sleep-better.html
- https://www.nbcnews.com/health/mental-health/why-so-many-people-are-experiencing-weird-pandemic-dreams-n1188901
- https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/harvard-researcher-says-dreams-indicative-of-virus-fears/
- https://www.cnet.com/news/is-the-coronavirus-pandemic-giving-you-bad-dreams-heres-why-and-how-to-cope/
Finding Hope 