Keeping social bonds strong while we're living alone

This could go on for months. Workplaces shut down. The arts and entertainment industries grinding to a halt. Local footy season openers cancelled. Barbeques called off and doors closed.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has warned we could be facing this crisis for the next six months. Apart from the obvious health burdens of the coronavirus pandemic, there are the human costs. Must we avoid prolonged social contact for that long? What will that do to us? How are we meant to cope?

Packed stadiums are suddenly a thing of the past, as Australians practice "social distancing" to stop the spread of coronavirus.Credit: AAP

Australian Psychological Society president Ros Knight says getting through the next few months will depend "absolutely on the perspective we take to it".

Anxiety and frustration are natural, normal responses to feeling a lack of control, Knight says. "When something is unknown and threatening we want to take control, so the question is how we do that."

Already, we have seen the best and worst of people - from Italians gathering on their balconies to serenade their neighbours and applaud the heroic efforts of health workers, to Australians emptying the shelves of vital children's medicines and toilet paper.

Knight takes an optimistic view of our capacity to respond to and pull through a prolonged period of isolation. She says while depression, anxiety and trauma are natural responses to social isolation, it is more to be expected in people who are in detention than social distancing. "It doesn't necessarily have to follow that we will see a spike in mental illness".

Many of us are working from home, living in self-imposed quarantine to slow the spread of the disease. The ban on gatherings of 100 or more indoors, and 500 or more outside, is only the beginning. European-style shutdowns are looming if the curve cannot be flattened fast enough.

For Melbourne musician and Brunswick Music Festival programmer Emily Ulman, that has spelled chaos.

Musician Emily Ulman.Credit: Josh Robenstone

The festival's second week was cancelled on Monday, throwing seven months' work out the window. Organisers are still calculating how much income has been lost.

Across the music industry gigs are being cancelled, venues are closing and Fitzroy's Old Bar has even turned to a GoFundMe campaign to pay its workers' wages.

According to I Lost My Gig Australia 220,000 gigs have so far been cancelled, affecting 400,000 people and ripping $200 million from the economy.

"Being the music capital of Australia, and our creative industry being so important to the city, I do think the government should be bailing out our artists," Ulman says.

But the arts are not just about money. They also bring us together - or they did. With live entertainment being smashed by social isolation, Ulman and others have rushed together an online live music festival, ISOL-AID, with musicians' performances to stream live on Instagram this weekend. Ulman predicts that as the need for social distancing grows, more events like ISOL-AID will fill the social and cultural void.

"I think it's a pretty lonely feeling," she says. "I personally want to spread as many feelings of community and kindness as I can. And I just hope ISOL-AID will help with that as well. And the music will go on."

Social researcher Hugh Mackay.Credit: Alan Benson

Social researcher Hugh Mackay is concerned about the long-term effects of social distancing, saying isolation can be incredibly damaging for people.

"We belong to a social species, and being cut off from the herd is deeply unnatural for us and deeply unhealthy for us," he tells The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

"Coronavirus is unhealthy, but so is social isolation. It's linked to anxiety, depression, hypertension, inflammation, cognitive decline, it increases the risk of addiction, particularly to IT devices, and it's linked to premature death.

"So it's a grim picture when you look at people in our society who are socially isolated. We've reduced one health hazard and we've dramatically increased another."

Anxiety, says Mackay, is "an absolutely natural human response" to the deeply unsettling times we live in.

"But the best way to combat it is to focus on the needs of others," he says. "Because anxiety is an absolutely self-absorbed state."

He recommends we look out for neighbours, particularly older people and people living alone. Drop food off for them, put a note under their door offering to help and stop for a chat if you see them in their garden: "Be more neighbourly than you usually would."

Another way Australians come together is through sport. While spectators are banned, this year's AFL season will go ahead - albeit in truncated form. But Thursday night's AFL season opener almost didn't take place at all, until crisis talks between the AFL's leadership, Health Minister Greg Hunt and Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy. It later emerged the government pushed for the season to go ahead, with Hunt telling Triple M radio it is important to boost community spirits and maintain normality "as much as possible".

"It’s now like community sport because the audiences aren’t there in person, but it will provide a huge boost to community morale," he said.

"My view is that this [going ahead with the AFL season] is an important step for the community."

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said on Friday that based on current trajectories, the coronavirus infection rate is likely to peak in 12 weeks. That suggests we will be fighting this disease for much of this year.

Ros Knight suggests we take life as a two-week proposition for the next period – just living fortnight by fortnight. Anything else could become overwhelming. She also stresses the importance of staying connected with others, in whatever way you can – through social media and group chats with friends and family. "We have a lot of options these days, thank goodness."

Knight says the shared aspect of our enforced social isolation could help people feel less alone, but advises against becoming glued to rolling news updates about the virus. People should get the information they need to stay safe, several times a day, and then stay away to protect themselves.

Amid the gloom and pessimism, it can help to remember why we are doing this. We stay at home to protect ourselves and our families, but also to serve a broader good. Isolating ourselves can be an act of care for our community.

Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has urged people to maintain hope in the face of dark months to come.Credit: AAP

Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe expressed this sentiment well on Thursday, when he announced the bank would cut the official interest rate to an all-time low of 0.25 per cent.

He began by urging people to take heart.

"We will come through this," he said. "At some point the virus will be contained and our economy and our financial markets will recover and things will return to normal. Undeniably, what we are facing today is a very serious situation but it's also something that's temporary.

"As we deal with it as best we can, we also need to look to the other side when things do recover. When we do get to that other side, all those fundamentals that have made Australia such a successful and prosperous and fantastic country will still be there. I think we need to remember that."

Tips to getting through social isolation

• Try to keep structure in your life; don't revert back to teenage habits of gaming all night and sleeping all day
• Set yourself achievement, fun and social tasks every day, and try to finish them
• Eat healthy food
• Exercise as much as possible. If you're housebound, look up exercise videos on YouTube
• Don't drink too much alcohol

Source: Australian Psychological Society president Ros Knight