TORONTO -- As the days of self-isolation stretch into weeks, many people may find themselves losing track of the days of the week or forgetting the date after their ordinary routines were dramatically upended by the pandemic.
This disruption in daily life can have a powerful effect on people鈥檚 moods and emotions, which in turn, influences their perception of time.
Steve Joordens, a psychology professor in the department of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Toronto, described these daily rituals as a sort of 鈥渁nchor鈥 that gives people a sense of where they are in time.
鈥淭hey are kind of like a rhythm to our lives,鈥 he explained to CTVNews.ca during a telephone interview from Toronto on Tuesday. 鈥淭hey tell us where we are within a given day, you know if it's lunchtime, but also within the given week, you know if it's Thursday or Friday, they feel very different than a Monday or Tuesday do.鈥
When suddenly all of those rituals are gone, as in the case of a pandemic, Joordens said it鈥檚 easy for people to lose that sense of where they are in the workday or the workweek.
鈥淭hey also lose sense of who they are,鈥 he said. 鈥淭his is what a lot of people kind of feel too, is that they feel a little adrift. They鈥檙e not really sure what they're supposed to be doing and they have this sort of vague, uneasy feeling.鈥
Rehman Abdulrehman, a clinical psychologist and the director of Clinic Psychology Manitoba, said human beings depend on routines and variety in their day-to-day lives.
鈥淭hat seems contradictory, to have routine and variety, but we actually tend to have that every day when we get up and we go to work or we go to school, we come back, there's a routine, but there's a difference in things that we do every day,鈥 he explained.
But as people begin to stay home without those same routines, Abdulrehman said there is a risk they will begin to do one thing on an ongoing basis and lose that important variety in their lives.
鈥淪ome people may not be active, may not be engaging in a routine, so you know there鈥檇 be a lot of Netflix, it鈥檚 very easy for the days to blur together,鈥 he said.
On the other hand, Abdulrehman said even those people who do develop a routine in quarantine may be susceptible to losing track of time if there isn鈥檛 enough variety within it.
鈥淭hey don't know what day it is because it's the same thing every day,鈥 he said.
The predicament becomes even harder, according to Joordens, for those who can鈥檛 work from home and have to come up with things to do on a daily basis. He said it鈥檚 hardest on them because they don鈥檛 necessarily have tasks they must do every day so they don鈥檛 get to experience that sense of accomplishment at the day鈥檚 end.
鈥淚t sounds beautiful to not have to go to work, not interact with those people, have nothing that you have to do, but in fact, it's not good for us mentally,鈥 he explained. 鈥淚t really leaves us feeling very adrift.鈥
In addition to the loss of routine, both Joordens and Abdulrehman said that people鈥檚 emotions can affect how they perceive time.
While it鈥檚 difficult to measure because it鈥檚 subjective in nature, Joordens said it鈥檚 common for people to feel as if time is going by slowly if they鈥檙e not very busy.
鈥淧eople who don't have a lot of structure and don't have a lot of things to do probably feel like time is going slowly and they probably can't wait to get out from under this,鈥 he said.
Abdulrehman added that certain emotions, such as distress, can also make the passage of time feel longer than it is to some people.
鈥淲e know that time flies when you're having fun. Well, the opposite is also true. When we're not really having fun, it just feels like things are taking a lot longer and they鈥檙e a lot more difficult,鈥 he said.
HOW TO PREVENT LOSING TRACK OF TIME
Create new rituals
While people鈥檚 daily rituals, such as dropping their children off at school or grabbing morning coffee with coworkers, may be over, Joordens said they can still create new ones while in self-isolation. He said people should schedule tasks in their day, whether they鈥檙e working from home or not, so that it feels like a regular work day.
鈥淚t's very important to us to wake up in the day and think, 鈥極K here are the things I have to do today,鈥欌 he said. 鈥淚t really does sort of push us through the day.鈥
Introduce variety
Because maintaining a routine with variety in it is so important for people, Abdulrehman recommends trying new activities to break up the monotony of life in quarantine.
鈥淭he thing here is not that we need to be productive, but we do need to start to try new things,鈥 he said. 鈥淓ven if you try the sourdough bread and it's a total bomb, it's very important that you try. And that experience will be novel, it'll be interesting for your brain.鈥
Be creative
Abdulrehman said that people should try to be creative when adjusting to their new reality at home. He said that will look different for everyone, but it will help them feel better about their situation.
鈥淐reativity is the thing that's going to save us,鈥 he said. 鈥淲hether it's being creative with a routine, being creative with trying new things, being creative with food, with limited things that we might have, being creative and trying to find ways to connect with people, finding ways to exercise.鈥
Learn how to relax the body and mind
Because anxiety and stress can affect people鈥檚 perception of time in quarantine and how it makes them feel, Joordens suggests confronting those emotions with a mind-body approach.
Joordens, who developed to help people manage their anxiety during the pandemic, said he recommends individuals try guided meditation to teach their bodies how to easily enter into a relaxed state.
鈥淭here are online lessons called guided relaxation, audio files, which will basically walk you through this process of first tightening up your whole body and making it really, really tense, but then really releasing that, relaxing, and feeling what it feels like when tension is released,鈥 he said. 鈥淚f you can put your body into that relaxed state, anxiety will dissipate.鈥
For the mind, Joordens said people should focus on being mindful of the impact different activities have on their mood.
鈥淪o if you're information hungry, and you leave the news on all day, every moment the news is on, it's telling you that you're under threat, and it's feeding your anxiety response,鈥 he said.
Joordens said people should take stock of these potential triggers for anxiety and schedule time in the day for positive activities, such as singing, dancing, and laughing, to momentarily escape from their reality.
Stay connected
Finally, Joordens said people should allot time in their day for social outreach so they can stay connected to family and friends.
鈥淵ou want to socially connect,鈥 he said. 鈥淚'm a big fan of the telephone. You can hear so much in the tone of somebody's voice about how they're actually feeling and that's the level we need to connect right now is at that emotional level.鈥
The psychologist said maintaining those connections can really help people dealing with anxiety or stress during the pandemic.
鈥淚f you can social outreach to somebody who really needs it, then that'll have special mojo too, because you'll feel like, 鈥極K, I'm really helping this person feeling lonely鈥 and of course, they will really appreciate the connection,鈥 he said.
