By Jim Kingstone
The numbers are grim. And if you’re like me, you’ve become obsessed with them, tuning in by the hour to get the latest statistics. The freedoms we take for granted have all but disappeared. Children and parents stuck at home self-isolating crave the structure of familiar routines, which for most of us have vanished. We have to create our own routine and stick to it with fierce determination.
There is comfort in simplicity. At this challenging time, the discipline of small and simple acts fully embraced is consoling. Think in 3s I tell my children and my students. Three Rs of Routine, Recreation and Reaching out.
Make no mistake: it may look simple, but it takes a lot of work.
Embrace Routine
Commit to a schedule. Wake at the same time each day, make your bed, reach for the nutritional foods that fuel and fortify. Small, specific gestures like these anchor the morning, and thus the day, injecting steadiness and predictability when your confidence may be low. Later when you’re tired, confused, depressed, or just inclined to feel sorry for yourself, early productivity can carry you through the rough patches.
Commit to Regular Exercise
Make exercise deliberate. A few minutes of walking, running or biking will raise your heart rate, lift your spirits, restore or unleash new energy, while building resilience. My local gym is shuttered but two weeks ago I found a long stick on the beach that’s enabled an improvised exercise routine. Drawing it across my shoulders and draping my arms along its smooth surface, I begin a series of three exercises, round and round on the wet grass behind my home, the dew soaking my running shoes. After eight minutes, I remove my jacket; another five and my legs are beginning to shake and I know I’m almost done. Afternoons at 5 my wife and I head out for a 6km walk. We get back in time for a bite to eat and then head to the porch to clap for healthcare workers across the country. On the weekends my wife and I set up an obstacle course – our own Covid Olympics – that challenge our skill, strength and our ingenuity. Reach for something that’s hard, challenging yourself in a new and exhilarating way – some extra push-ups, a core exercise that leaves you sore the next morning, a challenging yoga routine that you’ve resisted. The hard work will build not only new strength but also confidence.
Ritualize Reaching Out
If you’re like me, the greatest source of daily comfort and consolation lies in those gestures that bring me close to family. Everyday I text my sister, email my daughter, and call my nephew in Toronto, whose final year of high school has been radically altered. Now embedded in the fabric of my days, these activities allow me to manage my sense of deprivation, satisfying heightened personal needs, easing loneliness, investing my personal life with new meaning and purpose, and, most importantly, providing rich and varied opportunities to share my fears, express my gratitude, and brainstorm creative ideas for fighting long stretches of mind-numbing boredom. We say things to each other we wouldn’t have said even a few weeks ago. These simple acts take on their own special urgency, and yet they have the power to ease stress and worry since they give us a powerful sense of belonging, reminding us that with loved ones close we’re not alone. Reach out to friends and classmates, form an online study group to share notes, ideas, assignment strategies, homework support, and worries you may have about the uncertainty ahead. Chunk out the work demands in ways that energize you, leaving you looking forward with confidence, even excitement, rather than dread. With longer assignments or more complex tasks, ensure variety and change as you work through them to avoid feeling stale or getting overwhelmed. Know that difficulty has its own reward, training you to expand your capacity for persistence and toughness.
Your simple self, when daily life is so different, may be your best. Good luck. Now clap three times into the silence for yourself.
Jim Kingstone's work experience spans decades and disciplines at several top schools. Heading departments of English and Guidance Counselling, coast to coast, Jim has worked at Kings-Edgehill in Nova Scotia, The Webb Schools in Claremont, California, and several independent schools on Vancouver Island, including Shawnigan, Brentwood, Aspengrove and St. Michaels University School in Victoria, BC, where he is currently a university counsellor and academic advisor. With a wide-screen view of educational opportunity and a flexible and creative perspective on student learning and promise, Jim has helped hundreds of students successfully navigate and negotiate the complex challenges of university admission. As a career English teacher, he is especially adept at assisting students in gaining firm control of the variety of writing demands associated with applying to top-tier schools in Canada, the US and Europe.
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