Spending 14 days in a hotel room as part of your travel plans these days is standard in many countries as the world grapples with Covid-19. Travel certainly isn’t the carefree experience it once was but a rather stressful obstacle course of bureaucratic processes, new forms and procedures, visas, medical tests and safety measures.
Having just completed my stay, I wanted to share some survival tips because with all due respect to the encouragement from friends and family on the ‘outside’ being the one locked up is something that’s hard to describe unless you’ve experienced it yourself.
Feel all the feels
The first day I can only describe as a feeling of being in shock. My body felt tense and slightly numb as I adjusted to the situation. It’s not exactly a relaxing experience being escorted by heavily armed and PPE covered border police, regular police, air force and army personnel through a series of intense information gathering protocols and strict rule explanations for your two week stay at a hotel.
The story I’d been telling myself about the adventure of a ‘mystery hotel’ experience ended once the door shut on our tiny room and we sat down with the 46 pages of rules to read through and the understanding that we were now known by our room number and a coloured wristband indicating the level of risk we pose to others. It felt shocking and abrasive to my sensitive system.
A range of emotions bubbled up right from the get go. I felt fear about how I would cope. I felt anger at authorities for certain parts of the process that I thought could have been managed more humanely. I was irritated that our freedom was severely restricted and we didn’t even have an opening window. If I’m honest, my inner toddler was having a moment.
Waking on that second morning I was hit with a wave of depression and hopelessness. I’m not talking about the chronic, clinical condition of depression but a depressed state that I understood as temporary and very appropriate to this situation. Fortunately my past experience of depression and years of inner work as a coach had equipped me with not only the tools to deal with it but the understanding that acceptance and acknowledgement are key.
Some may not experience this at all but for those who do, know that this a perfectly normal human response to this situation. Hotel quarantine is effectively being locked up inside for most of the day in a small space and prevented from many of the things that keep us happy and healthy like being with friends and family, being outside and close to nature.
Even if your brain has rationalised the situation it doesn’t mean your body has accepted it in the same way. Don’t bypass what you feel in your body. Accept, acknowledge, refrain from making any judgements or meaning of it (I’m broken or there’s something wrong with me for feeling low) then do what you have to, in my case on Day 2 it was going back to bed.
Fix food anxiety
On day three we worked out that there was a 7 hour gap between lunch and dinner with nothing in between. We made the rookie mistake of dismissing half our lunch and sending it away but then found ourselves extremely HANGRY as we waited for dinner. Irritability doesn’t help the situation when you’re locked in a tiny room with a family member.
The other thing that happened is when the food did arrive for dinner, we scoffed it FAST. I realised that this had to change. It was something we could control and if we didn’t, we’d be on a daily emotional rollercoaster dependent on when our meals arrived and what each of those brown paper bags contained.
After a small delivery from my husband things changed for the better. The simple act of looking over at the empty bar fridge didn’t spark anxiety anymore. It was brimming with some options if the food was not to our liking and offered snacks on the long afternoon haul to keep blood sugar stable and spirits up.
I’d suggest arranging a care package with some healthy and yummy food from a loved one or place an order to be delivered to your hotel. Stock up on fresh fruit, nuts, natural yoghurt, hummus and crackers and chocolate or some treats that you fancy. Removing food scarcity from your mindset has an immediate calming and mood boosting effect.
Create a loose routine
If you’ve flown in from a different time-zone this may take a little while to iron out. Even our two hour difference took a few days but it’s important to get into a routine with your sleep as soon as possible. The quality of our sleep has a huge impact on health, both physical and mental.
There is a certain temptation to let everything go, stay up all night watching Netflix, sleep in the day, miss meals, graze all day, not move. Especially if you’re struggling emotionally with the whole experience. But trust me, making sleep a priority then sticking loosely to meal times and remaining diurnal (operating during the day/ sleeping at night) is the easiest way to stay sane and healthy.
My daughter and I slept a little later than we would at home but got up when breakfast arrived. I ordered a coffee at 9am when the café downstairs opened then used the morning to do more focused work (when I say work, I use that term very loosely). After lunch we would do our stint of walking circles in the carpark outside then spend the afternoon reading, listening to podcasts, drawing, connecting with friends etc. We reserved Netflix for the evening.
Your routine will vary depending if you’re alone or quarantining with someone, have young children, have to continue working to a schedule etc. but finding what works for you within the first few days will help set up your days and provide some structure and some milestones.
Keep expectations low
Initially you may think that having all this time on your hands will be an amazing opportunity to get stuck into a project and accomplish a huge amount. I realised on day one that this wasn’t going to be the case. Think back to your first experience of lockdown and you probably had the same ambitions.
The reality that many of us found was instead of learning a new language, picking up a musical instrument, finishing that manuscript and teaching our kids algebra like a pro, we did a moderate amount and then wondered what was happening with linear time.
My daughter and I are both quite creative people and yet we struggled to feel inspired while locked in a small room staring out at a sea of concrete, a tarmac and a construction site for a new hotel. I’m used to getting creative sparks and insight while walking on my local beach or having coffee with inspiring people but this situation turned out to be a real buzz kill.
On the plus side, once we removed the pressure of accomplishing certain big goals over this time we both settled into a natural rhythm of work/ rest/ create/ chill and I have to admit it felt far more self-nurturing and compassionate. So I didn’t end up nailing my marketing plan on day 3 but I did do a full overhaul of my Spotify playlists and that time spent gave me far more joy in the end.
Drink mindfully
On our first full day in hotel quarantine we were not given any water. As a naturopath I was horrified! There was a juice box with breakfast and a can of soft drink with lunch and dinner. I rang and ordered water only with all of our meals from then on. This small inconvenience for the staff packing our meals saved us from consuming around 322 teaspoons of sugar during our stay!
I love a morning coffee and I’m sure fellow coffee snobs will agree with me that paying an additional $5 for a barista coffee each morning is worth it in this situation. This treat gave me a little lift in the mornings but it’s worth mentioning that coffee is an anxiolytic. That is, it stimulates the nervous system in a way that can induce anxiety in some people. If you’re struggling with anxiety in any way, calming herbal teas or green tea with less caffeine might be a better choice.
Alcohol is strictly monitored during hotel quarantine. There were daily limits at our hotel that I’m sure no one would disagree with on principal. Alcohol is a depressant to the system so not helpful to anyone struggling with ongoing feelings of low mood. Both caffeine and alcohol also disrupt sleep, reducing both quality and quantity which has further detrimental effects. In saying that, if it’s a treat to have a beer or glass of wine at the end of the day similar to the morning coffee effect, then I’d encourage you to enjoy it without guilt. Just make sure caffeine and alcohol are treats to enjoy rather than crutches.
Get Vitamin D where you can and Move
Our hotel windows didn’t open. In fact they weren’t windows but thick panes of glass that let light in but definitely not fresh air or UVB, the particular light needed to stimulate vitamin D production in the body. Vitamin D is hugely important to the body and those with low levels are more susceptible to a range of illnesses.
As humans, we’re designed to move and to be outside and exposed to sunlight. In our hotel we were allowed outside to walk in circles around a small fenced carpark. Our exercise yard was next to the construction site of a new hotel so we walked to the sound of jackhammers and the environment in general was uninspiring but we committed to the daily regime, purely for health and wellbeing reasons.
To kill two birds with one stone we walked when it was sunny, which didn’t happen every day but we did our best to expose some skin and soak in the feel-good magic of the sun. Obviously you need to be mindful of not burning your skin so be sensible about your particular skin, your location and time of exposure. The biggest benefit of walking in the sunshine was an increase in mood, effective immediately.
The last few days of our stay were made especially tough by being confined to our room. Due to an incident at another hotel in the region where the virus escaped into community we were forced to stay in our room after our second Covid test, a total of 80 hours. Some of you may have even longer in this situation. If you can’t get outside, hang in there and keep up the moving part.
Our room wasn’t big enough for two of us to workout at the same time so we took it in turns to roll out the mat. But each day we’d both spend 20–30 mins doing some strengthening and stretching to maintain a level of fitness. Youtube is a godsend, I tried everything from Zuu Fitness to African dance, pilates and yoga.
Celebrate each day and keep things in perspective
When we checked in we were given our release day and time, presuming we remained healthy. Ours was 6:01pm. Every evening at that time we ticked off another day and acknowledged how far through we were.
It was also a good time to practice gratitude. I developed a habit of writing down something each day I was grateful for and my daughter and I recounted what we’d done or worked on that day. Even if it was just organising our Spotify playlists, we’d have a laugh at how we spent the day and formerly mark the occasion.
One of the things that helped me with a perspective shift when I was struggling in the early days of quarantine was a friend saying to me ‘thank you for quarantining so that the rest of us can enjoy our freedoms’. This really touched me because it offered a sense of purpose and greater perspective. That my temporary restrictions were part of the collective solution.
Fourteen days is not a large amount of time in the scheme of things. While the monotony of your days seems to drag out time, it will be gone in a flash. If you need any further inspiration be sure to bring a copy of Viktor Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ with you. It’s on my top list of books for everyone to read no matter their circumstances but in this case, Viktor’s story and wisdom is particularly helpful and humbling.
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