What day is today, Friday or Monday?: A Lockdown Impact!

During this lockdown, I often ask to my wife, what is the day today?  Is it Monday or Tuesday? And she gets irritated with me for raising such a silly question. Have the lockdown days made me so forgetful about ordinary things?  On the one hand she looks at me quizzically but on the other hand, she herself asks even more silly questions to me like “What day is today, Friday or Monday? Or what is the date today, 10 or 20?” 

If you have been confusing what day or date it is, you are not alone.  In this lockdown, everybody’s mental clock is only partially functioning or not at all, as many are struggling with the pandemic.  The Covid-19 virus outbreak has rendered calendars somewhat obsolete. As India settles down into its more than 9th week in lockdown, it seems that many of us, particularly those who are working from home, are beginning to lose the track of time and try to go about with a semblance of normality.

For what reason does the lockdown befuddle our feeling of time?  During normal times, our calendar days or weekends and month-ends are dictated by our work.  That means, in our day to day schedule, what we eat, how we dress, when we go to sleep and when we wake up are totally dictated by our work. By routine, we get started with our work on a Monday and knowing that it would be wound up on a Saturday. But during this lockdown, certainly, many of these characteristics of our routine have been lost.

More than a third of the world's populace is now thought to be under some sort of lockdown in a bid to control the spread of the Covid-19 disease. This is especially true for those working-safely-from-homes and who would normally structure their days around their work and work-schedule.

To those experiencing difficulties remembering the date and the day, it is advisable that they organize their life with a little more discipline than other times. Try to wake up at the same time each day, even if you have no work.  Eat normal food  at a specific time and ensure adequate discipline throughout the day by scheduling time for other activities like meditation and physical exercise of one’s choice, not remaining sitting idle for prolonged periods of time.

What makes the Covid 19-times disorientating is that the physical atmosphere looks very normal but we have lost every social anchor that we would normally use.  Also, setting definite goals, and scheduling time to accomplish them besides our other obligations, can help us to structure our days and feel more productive. This will also provide a sense of achievement, something many of us have been probably lacking in these lockdown days! Monday to Friday and in the week-ends live consciously. Give a boost to your inner spirit!

This article published in Metro Varrtha on 31.5.2020