Pandemics can be incredibly stressful. They create discomfort by uprooting the normality in our everyday lives. How we respond to stress varies from person to person depending on background, financial situation, community and more. Managing stress and advocating for your own personal wellbeing are especially important during this unconventional time. 

Here are some mental health wellness tips for quarantine to help you stay on top of your game and continue to be the best version of yourself.

You’ve probably heard this a million times by now but creating a routine and sticking to it will do wonders for your wellbeing. Our habits and routines can help get the feeling of control back. Wake up and go to bed at the same time everyday, eat healthy and get outside. Sunlight hitting your skin is important for the development of Vitamin D, which helps your body fight off cancer, depression and heart issues. Spending time in the great outdoors will help bring up your mood and lower stress levels. Our connection to nature fills a deep evolutionary need, grounding us and eliminating stressors from the current situation. 

You may feel like the situation you are in will never end. Remind yourself that at some point this pandemic is temporary. The world won’t go back to “normal” but eventually we will return to feeling a more safe and consistent life. Having this mindset will inspire you to be more positive and find appreciation for the little things. Counterbalance the heaviness of the world with simplicity in entertainment, art and adventure, all while staying six feet away from others of course. 

Starting a project is one of the best ways to focus negative or stressful energy into something positive. Take this time to challenge yourself to create, learn to knit, read an entire book series, garden or sell fruit in Animal Crossing. Art as a whole is a therapeutic and relaxing activity. Engaging in creative activities will help boost your mindset and personal wellbeing. Changing up your living environment so that it is safe and clean can also help you feel organized and in control of your situation. 

Nurturing your soul whilst dealing with uneasy feelings is incredibly different for everyone. Covid has played a unique role in each of our lives. With a potential second wave upon us here in the U.S, managing our mental state is crucial in staying calm. Anxieties can run rampant when there are so many unanswered questions floating around. Never be afraid to reach out to others about how you’re feeling.

Working towards wellness doesn’t have to be an individual effort. Embrace support from others and talk it’s how we stay connected to the people we love. Technology has evolved in such a way that it allows us to communicate with each other no matter the distance. Clinical resources aren’t available for everyone. Stay connected with the people you trust and share your experiences. This also offers the opportunity for you to be there for others who rely on your support, compassion and empathy to persevere through stressful situations. Quarantine and lockdown can affect people with pre-existing mental health problems so it’s important to check in with people. 

Pets are unsurprisingly wonderful companions to be around. They help alleviate our stress and remain by our side no matter what. Spend some time with your furry friend and you'll notice how much they help alleviate stress.

There isn’t one single path to create balance in your life to establish a healthy routine to manage wellbeing. Recognize the difficulty of the world around you and keep your head up, eventually things will get better. 

Let’s talk about Ultraviolet Light. You may be asking yourself, what exactly is ultraviolet light? Well today I’m going to briefly explain to you what it is and how it affects the world around us.

What is UV-C Light?

Ultraviolet light is not purple, in fact it isn’t any specific color, as humans UV light is not in our realm of visible light. Due to the shorter wavelengths of UV light, it is impossible to detect with the naked eye. Some species can see UV light however, like bumblebees or other small insects. UV light originates from the sun and can be broken down into three subcategories; UV-A, UV-B and UV-C.

Isn't UV Bad for You?

Now just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there, and without proper protection, UV light can be harmful. As a form of radiation, UV light can have damaging effects on our skin. Prolonged exposure to both UV-A and UV-B light have been known to damage the DNA in the skin which can lead to genetic defects, mutations or skin cancer. Thankfully for us, 95% of UV light is absorbed by the Earth’s ozone layer.

Despite what you may be thinking, not all ultraviolet light is bad. UV-C light is unique because it has the ability to break apart the DNA in germs, leaving them unable to reproduce and spread.

UV-C Light Kills & Disinfects Germs

This is good news as UV-C even has the ability to fight off diseases that have become resistant to antibiotics. The cleansing effect of UV-C is rarely found naturally as most of the light is blocked by the earth’s atmosphere.

However, humans have found a way to utilize the light for our benefit. UV-C light bulbs! Imagine having a string of UV-C light bulbs strung around the house as decorations, well that would be a little strange. 

UV-C light has the ability to disinfect germs on surfaces, the air and in water. This is incredibly important in this day and age when we are faced with a pandemic that seems to spread faster than light itself.

It is important to know the reliability and success of this light means that no microorganisms can survive against UV-C light, it is that strong. Compared to regular household cleaners, UV-C light outruns its competitors with leaps and bounds. 

So Why is UV-C Effective?

Well besides all the information that I mentioned above,

• UV-C light is a cost effective resource that can help defend against germs at home, but also in the medical field.
• It is used in hospitals and clinics, especially while facing unprecedented challenges in regards to medical supplies due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Healthcare workers can disinfect personal protective equipment, surfaces, floors with ease.
• Eliminates the expenses of other types of cleaning supplies. 

You might be wondering, if UV-C light is so effective why haven’t we used it before? Well the answer is we have. The use of UV-C as a form of disinfectant light has been around for about 200 years, with Niels Finsen as the inventor of the first lamp. His curative invention was awarded a Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1903. In the 1930’s the light became a commercial product which was sold to hospitals.

The use of UV-C light has evolved since then, becoming more effective in killing germs and eliminating bacteria. With a 99.9% success rate, and an ever growing market of people seeing the light in sanitization, the future of UV-C is looking pretty bright.

Germs are everywhere, and not all of them are good. From your phone screen to your pet dog, they exist on all types of surfaces. Over time humans have developed higher standards of health and sanitation in order to combat these germs becoming deadly diseases. However, we still have a long way to go. In order to put our medical advancements into perspective, we need to take a look into the plagues of the past to get a better understanding of the pandemic of the present.

The Black Death otherwise known as the Bubonic Plague is one of the most deadly epidemics in the history of mankind.The disease tore through Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe in the 1300’s and killed between 75 to 200 million people. Carried by fleas that lived on rats as well as body lice, the deadly germ spread easily from person to person. Unlike today, there were no vaccinations to strengthen the immune system. Someone who was seen as healthy could easily catch the Bubonic Plague, as it attacked the body's lymphatic system. This resulted in swollen lymph nodes and thus the term Bubo was born. Even though this disease was around hundreds of years ago, it technically never went away. Like today’s pandemic of Covid-19, people were isolated from one another to slow the spread of the disease. The word quarantine was actually invented around this time from the Italian word, quarantino, which referred to the 40 days people were placed in isolation.

Like the Bubonic plague, Smallpox also used isolation methods to stop sicknesses from spreading. Seen in incredibly high numbers amongst immigrant settlers in colonial America, Smallpox ravaged populations. Boston was hit with the epidemic on seven different occasions. The city was kept in isolation, but many citizens fled, which led to the disease traveling throughout the region. Smallpox dumbfounded doctors and disfigured its victims striking fear into the populous. It spread like wildfire amongst settlers and even faster within Native American populations. This disease decimated Indigenous people, significantly depopulating entire areas. Despite the extensive horrible things that occurred during this time due to the disease, there was a silver lining.

Inoculation was invented as a way to combat Smallpox. Now you may be asking yourself, what is inoculation? A more common word for it would be immunization or vaccination. A lot of people seem to be protesting it these days but vaccines have been historically beneficial in combating deadly diseases. I’m not going to go too in depth on the inoculation process to spare those of you with a weak stomach, but in short inoculation is when you use infected materials to infect a patient. The inoculation process helped to slow the spread of those infected by smallpox limiting. It took a long time for this process to be accepted by the world. Many people were hesitant to trust the idea of giving yourself the germs in order to develop immunity. Eventually, immunization became a standard practice and the rate of mortality began to significantly decrease. Now, just because you have an immunity to something, doesn’t mean you can’t catch it. You still get sick but the illness spreads much slower and with the idea of herd immunity at play, it can die out all together.

With the evolution of vaccines, has come many failures. Pertussis or Whooping Cough is an illness that has overcome immunization time and time again. Prior to the 1950’s there were millions of cases of this sickness around the world. A vaccine was invented that seemed like the light at the end of the tunnel, until it wasn’t. The unprecedented resurgence of Pertussis has stumped scientists for years. Despite vaccines the disease still had a high mortality rate. In 2010 the state of California noted a 418% increase in Whooping Cough. Modifications in disease prevention have evolved significantly, but there are still some things out there that confuse even the brightest minds.

Pandemics have always existed. In every region, on every country and continent, they’ve affected millions of human beings. A pandemic is defined as a worldwide spread of disease. H1N1, Spanish Flu, Cholera and Covid-19 are just a few. Many of these pandemics are similar to one another. H1N1 and Covid have nearly identical symptoms. The Spanish Flu like Covid is a respiratory disease that is incredibly contagious. Though Cholera is not a virus it spreads similarly to Covid. The spread of this pandemic was slowed with the help of the most basic idea, to wash your hands. 

So diseases that existed hundreds of years apart can be exponentially different, but also similar to the crisis we are dealing with today. Medical advancements throughout history have helped to eliminate terrible diseases, but without the cooperation of regular people, they alone aren’t always enough. That’s why it’s so important to eliminate the germs that we are exposed to. Whether that’s through isolation or sanitation methods like UV-C light, it is important to be aware of the issue but that eventually pandemics do come to an end.