Thursday, April 23, 2020

Article Series on Mental Health during COVID-19 - 2 dated 21-04-2020


In the present pandemic situation, when many of us are working from home, the physical boundaries between the work place and home has virtually disappeared. The change in the work environment might have led to difficulties in managing your work targets as well as family responsibilities at same space and pace. It is a challenge to maintain a balance between professional and personal front currently. Such a challenge has increased concerns over health, fitness, occupational stress and the difficulties in combining work and childcare among employees. However, the current situation has given us an opportunity to spend more time with our personal relationships and family and we all are united today, with a common situation of working from home.

It can be said that problems and difficulties are similar among all of us but it depends upon our attitude, mind- set, adaptability and commitment towards dealing with individuals and situation. The current situation has given us an opportunity to think differently. All of us need to understand that no one is alone. We are opportune to fulfil our targets in more dedicated way with more focus now. Following are few of the tips that can be followed to maintain balance between work and home, even while working from home:

1. Space management: Keep a corner completely for your official work. The space will help you to maintain distance from house hold matters.

 2. Time Management: While working from home, you need to distribute your time, so that you can devote enough time to your work as well as your family members in a fair and just manner.

3. Health Management: Being at home there is an ample chance, to get yourself involved in binge eating. You need to understand the relevance of maintaining your physical health with proper exercise and balanced diet even while working from home. This will help you to remain active throughout the day. Always remember morning and evening walk can also be done within the house premises or at your balcony.

4. Self- Management: Earlier researches have indicated that proper dressing and self-presentation while doing the official work leads to a mind-set, readiness to work and productivity. So, you need to manage yourself accordingly while working at home.

 5. Taking Breaks: You need to give yourself a break even between the time span of working. Too much involvement in work might produce a feeling of being stuck at your own home. You need to understand when to “stop” yourself, to prevent from taking much stress. Even giving a gap of five to ten minutes of unplanned time between the official work and home related work might refresh and energize you

Being positive and satisfied is the need of the hour in the present time. Hence we need to have a clear demarcation between our home and work responsibilities while staying at home itself. A clear schedule regarding this will help us build up an appropriate mindset, facilitating work-life balance and accepting the present situation positively.

Dr. Smita Gupta, Discipline of Psychology, IGNOU

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