Three things we’ve all learned about ourselves during lockdown number three

Alice is a former Walsall College student who’s writing a series of blogs for students like herself.   These vary from student advice, informative blogs and an insight into life beyond college. Her first blog is looking back at lockdown, exploring how to take some positives away from a negative.  Read on and find out more!

Lockdown three is ending, finally.  It’s easy to look back on the start of this year to now and think about how terrible it has been.  But it’s also important to look at the good things that came about from these months of isolation.

Feelgoods

Firstly, I think one of the most important things we’ve learnt about ourselves during this lockdown is the ability to keep a positive mindset. When people think about the first lockdown in 2020, they tend to feel nostalgic about it, since it felt like a massive pause from the day to day realities we all knew.

With this lockdown however, it’s been a lot easier to feel negative and down about everything. This is where being able to keep a positive mindset comes from.

With simple little changes, such as the time you wake up due to not having to travel to college, the ability to keep a positive mindset is a lot easier. These little changes have been different for everyone, but it’s unlikely you’ve lived the exact same lifestyle since the announcement of this lockdown.

In our own ways, we’ve all managed to retain our positive mental attitudes in some way, shape, or form, which has let us all continue to study during such hard times. Even if you aren’t working at your regular standard, it’s important to acknowledge the achievement in completing any work during lockdown. Allow that achievement to feed the positive mindset as we leave lockdown and return to college.

A different kind of downtime

In a similar vein to changing the timings of your day, it’s important to realise how beneficial those different break times have been compared to your usual ones at college. You may have spent your lunch hour going for a walk, playing a video game, or just talking to friends over social media. You’ll be able to feel the stark difference in those break times as you return to college and may begin to appreciate them more.

This is a lesson in realising that change in your regular routine is good and should be something you attempt to do semi-often.  Change in routine during your break times, rather than just wandering into Walsall town centre or sitting in the Atrium, will have helped you recharge. If we ever lockdown again, definitely consider how different your routine became over this lockdown and reimplement it!

Switching off, tuning out, shutting down

Finally, decompression. Decompression to me is the most important thing I have learnt about myself during the lockdown.

I never realised how much I need to decompress to continue working as I do. Decompression is different for everyone, for some people it’s going to bed early, for some people it’s spending more time watching TV rather than working, but no matter the difference, everyone’s version is valid.

Decompression, much like the other two topics discussed, aren’t exclusive to lockdown and shouldn’t be exclusive to lockdown. As we return to college it’s a personal challenge to every student to figure out how to keep these themes running in their new day to day routines. For myself, it’ll be no work after 5pm no matter what is happening. More walks too, mostly so I can shift the lockdown lbs more than trying to keep a positive mindset.