What you miss the most when you live alone (and 5 tips to ease it)
Happy Saturday from my home quarantine. For about four weeks now, I no longer call it Saturyay, because there is little to celebrate on weekends these days. Totally sucks. But surviving doing nothing on weekends, I can manage that. Sure, it's boring and takes some getting used to, but it’s doable. What I find much harder is that you have to do that whole nothingness alone. That you are alone week in and week out. Because I live alone and that means everyone around you is one and a half meters away. And that is quite lonely.
By the way, science agrees too. They even gave it a name: skin hunger. The literal feeling of hunger for someone who touches you. So, in the past weeks, I have certainly discovered what that is like. I feel starved now. My skin, that is, those quarantine kilos are doing just fine, you know. But touches also absolutely affect your overall mood. When someone hugs you, oxytocin is released, also known as the cuddle hormone. On average, after twenty seconds of hugging (oh, how I would love that right now). I had a good laugh at the article from De Speld that reported that the panda points are being relaxed during the corona quarantine, but that is really not what I miss the most. It’s the simple touches and that twenty-second hug.
But well, unfortunately, singles have to do without that for now. So we have to get creative. Here are five tips to still get that oxytocin (or something close to it).
1. Hug a pet
It didn’t surprise me at all that the shelters have never been so empty: pets are companions for life, especially in quarantine. My cat has been living with my parents for a few years now (because: got a too small Amsterdam apartment), so I visit her multiple times a week now. Parents at one and a half meters away, the cat gets an overdose of attention, I get my dose of oxytocin. And they are nice and soft.
2. Give and/or receive compliments
Positivity towards others and getting it back can also provide a dose of oxytocin. Now, it’s not always easy (at least for me) to stay positive, because this situation is often just not fun at all. But giving a compliment to a friend can easily be done at one and a half meters distance. So spread the positive vibes.
3. Listen to music
And not music like Evanescence or Birdy or something else sad, but something uplifting. Extra oxytocin points if you listen and sing along together (via Zoom or on the phone). By the way, besides the cuddle hormone, dopamine is also released, also known as the ‘happiness hormone’. Win-win. My go-to is Watermelon Sugar by Harry Styles, perfect for singing along and just a really nice song.
4. Cry
Sounds weird, but let those tears flow if you want to. Research has shown that when you don’t do this (and suppress your tears while you actually want to cry really hard), your oxytocin levels drop. And it also causes stress. A no-go, so let those dams break.
5. Eat dark chocolate
We have another excuse to eat chocolate – can’t hurt. But then dark chocolate, okay (which I unfortunately don’t really like), because it stimulates the production of oxytocin. The purer, the better.
You get what I’m going to do, right? While cuddling with my cat, I tell her how beautiful she is, I sing along with Harry Styles while I devour a bar of pure Tony’s Chocolonely and let my tears flow freely. All at once.
