Experiencing the impact of pandemic is something that neither of us were prepared for; however the current quarantine situation that all the world is now living has brought out several emotional issues; anxiety is one of the most frequent feeling that have been presented; and it is characterized by having a lot of stress and fear for a possible danger that it’s approaching. The impact of this emotion has caused that a huge percentage of people is presenting now one of the most well-known sleeping disorders; insomnia.

Anxiety and insomnia are practically linked together, it is almost sure that if you suffer from one of these conditions you are also dealing with the other one. The fact that almost all countries have established strict secure measurements to protect society against Covid-19, have caused a huge impact on the way of life we were used to have; we are now required to lock ourselves in our homes; in order to avoid getting sick and prevent others from getting sick as well.

As humans, we have been programmed to socialize, and without this option, we have been placed in a situation of continuous stress; this has affected directly our sleeping cycle in different ways.

The pandemic situation is presenting in different manners for each people; while a few percentage is sleeping quiet more because they do not feel the responsibility of waking up early; there is a higher amount that is not resting appropriately at night; due to all the uncertainty that is now manifesting.

Anxiety consequences during covid-19

The main causes of why most of us are having difficulties to fall asleep or enjoy from a pleasant sleep during all night during quarantine are:

• Being lock in our homes most of the time; without the opportunity to enjoy the natural lighting, which helps our circadian rhythm to work correctly and induces us to sleep.
• Absence of physical activity; especially for our children who were used to go out every afternoon and play with their friends or run in the park.
• Changing our daily routines completely; missing all those quotidian activities that we used to do like having to go to school or work, going to the supermarket, practice a sport, etc.
• Being irritable because of the social life absence; since there are no opportunities to talk to your school or work friends as usual.
• Spending too much time watching different electronic devices like T.V., tablets, or cell phones.

How we can treat anxiety and sleeping disorders during quarantine?

Practical ways of combating with these changes are:

1. Waking up early and at the same time every day
2. Getting at least 15 min of sunlight exposure
3. Avoid as much as possible taking naps
4. Reduce or eliminate the consumption of alcoholic beverages
5. Practicing at least 30minutes or 1 hour of daily exercise
6. Maintain your mind occupied by reading a book or doing crafts
7. Implement meditation and breathing exercises before sleep
8. Keeping healthy food habits, and eating lightly during dinner
9. Setting an ideal environment to sleep, with comfortable bedclothes, along with a perfect pillow.

When we maintain our mind and body occupied, anxiety feelings don’t have time to show up; therefore it is important to keep a routine as normal as possible during this quarantine process and sleep appropriately so we can keep functioning; after all, we need to continue enjoying life even with its downsides; the good news is that everything we are going through will hopefully end some day soon.