This Is What You Can Do to Help during Lockdown

If you're looking after yourself and your loved ones, then you're already doing a lot for the common good in the current pandemic. No more is required of you. However, there are many more things you can do which can help during lockdown. We explain them below.

Written and verified by the psychologist Valeria Sabater.

Last update: 21 February, 2022

Doctors, nurses, assistants, cleaners, researchers, pharmacists, supermarket staff, drivers, farmers, police… In our society, many people are playing an active role in the current coronavirus crisis. Even though you may not believe it, you too can offer your help during lockdown in an equally relevant and essential way.

Erich Fromm said that human beings always die before they’re completely born. If you think about it, you’ll see that the current situation is offering you an exceptional opportunity to “be completely born” and to shape your life in a fuller, more intelligent, and more responsible way. You’re required to give the best of yourself and a situation like this is a change that you must take advantage of.

It doesn’t matter that you’re not part of that collective that’s on the front line right now taking care of the sick. Nor does it matter that you don’t belong to those parts of society that are providing basic goods. We’re all essential parts of the bridge that’s supporting the survival of the human race and the chance to overcome this situation.

What can you do to help during lockdown?

Most of us like feeling useful. Providing help to the best of our ability is almost a necessity, and more so in the current circumstances. Spending the day within four walls watching the hours go by through the window is a strange and often desperate way to live.

As a study conducted at Stanford University by Dr. Jennifer Aaker concludes, people need to feel useful. The act of giving, and being useful to others, helps you to strengthen your identity. In other words, if you help those who need it at a given time, it isn’t to get any benefit in return. The act of helping is part of who you are; it should be part of your root values as a human being.

The fact that we can’t do anything in the midst of this global crisis can be problematic for many people. Obviously, some people will just be in survival mode, worrying only about their own well-being. Others fail to see the reality of what’s really happening and may even doubt the measures that are being taken.

Human beings are complex and diverse. But even so, the vast majority of them feel the need to be able to do something more at this time. Thus, keep reading to discover what you can do to help during the pandemic.

By taking care of yourself, you’re already doing a lot for others

It’s as simple as that. By taking care of yourself, and taking care of your physical, mental, and emotional well-being, you’re already doing a lot. Taking preventative measures to avoid contracting and spreading the virus is helping to contain this pandemic as quickly as possible.

Thus, although you’d like to do so much more, as philosopher Slavoj Zizek rightly points out, it’s time to be practical and patient. For once in your life, “doing nothing” is good. Staying in survival mode is the most important thing. And that’s how we help the most.

Worry about those around you

There’s one essential thing you can do to help during lockdown: look after those around you. It’s time to create a network of connections to look out for other people’s physical and emotional well-being from a distance.

Establish contact through phone calls or video calls with your family, friends, and co-workers. You shouldn’t just tell them what you’re doing. It’s essential to start these conversations with a “How are you today?”

In addition to this, it’s important to consider your neighbors, especially if they’re older people. Worry about how they are and what they need.

Be careful with the information you share with others

Now more than ever, what you say and pass on to others really does matter. It’s time to add and not subtract, to help and not to intensify fear or create more uncertainty.

Therefore, when you read an article or when you see something on social media that catches your attention, be careful and apply filters to detect hoaxes and fake news.

Avoid sharing information with those who could be affected adversely by it, affecting their mood or even endangering them in some way.

To help others during the pandemic, use your talent

We all have talents and skills. Thus, if you want to help others during the pandemic, fire up your imagination and open the windows of your home to let it reach out to others. But how can you do this?

• If you’re a musician, go out onto your balcony and give your neighborhood a free recital.
• If you know how to sew,  make masks.
• Or, if you can, consider making PPE equipment for health workers.
• If you’re a connoisseur of art, astronomy, philosophy, cinema, or literature, open a YouTube channel or offer your knowledge directly on a social network.
• If you’re a physiotherapist, chiropodist, ophthalmologist, botanist, or decorator, offer your advice free on a social network for those it could help.

There are a thousand ways you could help during lockdown. Each one of us, from our own little planets, can connect with the universe and help those who need it. Each of us, in our own special way, can make this situation much more humane and bearable.