Five-a-day is a set of daily goals, backed up by research, which provides guidance and practical ways each of us can take responsibility for meeting our basic human needs, even through periods of isolation and social distancing. Each of these goals can be achieved by a variety of activities which you can proactively plan into your day.
The five key goals are:
- Have some fun!
Laughter, play and having fun are powerful resilience resources. Shared laughter can strengthen feelings of social connectedness. Making time to share a funny moment or a meme can create positive feelings and combat fear and anxiety.
- Take time for you!
We all need a bit of personal space. You may be able to enjoy some quiet time away from everyone else in your house, have a relaxing bath, go for a run, or you may have to put on your headphones and listen to music. It is also important to make sure everyone else in your household is able to take some ‘me-time’.
- Cultivate compassion
Cultivating self-kindness, tolerance, and helping others have already been mentioned as key resilience resources that are all relevant to the current crisis. Compassion towards yourself can help you feel less anxious about the many unknowns in the situation you face and help you develop a sense of inner calm. There are many helpful activities that can support you with this goal, including a number of online resources that teach mindfulness and meditation or relaxation skills.
- Interact with others!
We are social creatures and the need to belong and to interact with others is fundamental to our sense of self. This is why it is so important to have daily positive interactions with others. Maintaining social connectedness and possibly forming new connections during this time of uncertainty, will enhance your sense of relatedness. This is also the area that may be most easily affected by social distancing practices and may therefore require some extra effort from you.
Scheduling time to connect with friends or family using either the phone or social media can help. It might also help to volunteer to help others during periods of time you are not self-isolating.
- Be positive!
This consists of adopting a positive attitude towards the situation, actively seeking to engage in positive action to solve problems, address challenges, and grow as a person. We also need to take steps to avoid unnecessary fear and worry. We can generate fear and anxiety for ourselves and others by excessive information gathering and then sharing frightening stories based on unverified or poor-quality sources. Other examples of positive action include undertaking a personal project, learning a new language, or improving your qualifications by undertaking some distance learning.
The idea behind the Five-a-day concept is that you proactively seek activities and actions you can take that fall into these categories.
All five are important and the challenge is to engage in behaviours that fall into every one of these five categories every day. That will require some discipline and might be quite challenging. However, each of these areas has been shown by research to be important in staying well when facing stress.
