 | | Shar Tuiasoa |
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Anyone else dreading winter? |
Cases of the coronavirus are climbing, and winter weather is going to cut off many of the lifelines — picnics in the park, running outside, outdoor dining — so many people have depended on for sanity this year. Vaccines are on the horizon, but even the most optimistic timelines put them months away. And time spent with family during the holidays, normally a bright spot in winter months, is all but canceled this year. |
But there are ways to mentally steel yourself for such a dark set of circumstances! Here’s how. |
Since November 2019, David Knoff has led a team of 24 people at Davis Station, a permanent research outpost in Antarctica run by the Australian Antarctic Division. The yearly average high temperature there is around 19 degrees Fahrenheit, and during the darkest days of winter — typically from May to July — in some weeks there are zero hours of daylight. I asked him how he and his team dealt with constant cold and darkness while in extreme isolation. |
To get through a bleak winter, Mr. Knoff said, it’s important to change with your surroundings and train yourself to learn to make the best of a tough situation. “It is surprising how well you adapt to your surroundings and conditions,” he said. |
For 328 days from March 2019 to February 2020, the NASA astronaut Christina Koch floated 250 miles above Earth while aboard the International Space Station, setting the record for the longest continuous time spent in space by a woman. During her time on the I.S.S., she said there were days when she would go to sleep knowing her schedule for the next day, only to wake up and have it entirely rearranged. And even if a day’s schedule didn’t have any surprises, at any moment something could go catastrophically wrong and the entire crew would have to adapt — a mind-set she uses while quarantining at home. |
“What you can control is how you react to that situation,” she said. “What you can control is whether or not you let yourself go down a bad mental path or not. You can control whether or not you put yourself in a position of more resiliency to things that may go wrong in the future.” |
While on the I.S.S., Ms. Koch was surprised when her mission was extended by about five months. So in one sense, she said, she has been through this before. |
“I had to shift my thinking from, It’s a marathon, not a sprint, to, It’s an ultramarathon, not a marathon,” she said. “In the pandemic, that’s what I have reframed,” she said. |
Ms. Koch returned to Earth in February, but just as she was finishing physical rehabilitation and getting ready to embark on the many plans she had made, lockdowns were ordered. She had to trade one type of isolation for another — once again an unexpected change in plans. And she was compelled again to adjust how she viewed her situation. |
“I’m a big fan of just setting expectations in my own mind to always err on the side of being pleasantly surprised,” she said, “rather than being disappointed.” |
Make genuine efforts to stay connected |
Thanksgiving this year was tough for a lot of people. A holiday that in any other year would be a joyous occasion was instead, well, a mess. The December holidays will most likely be much of the same, with health officials still advising people not to travel. |
Being away from loved ones for so long is never easy, so it’s crucial to find unique, special ways to stay connected. |
“You have to be creative in how you stay relevant in the lives of your loved ones,” Ms. Koch said. “Staying relevant means you don’t just communicate occasionally by email — you do things that almost feel like you’re close.” |
While in space, for example, Ms. Koch, “ran” a half-marathon in Glacier National Park with her friends — at the same time they were running on the actual course, Ms. Koch ran the 13.1 miles on her space treadmill, printed-out number and all. |
From September 1991 to September 1993, Jane Poynter was in Biosphere 2, a fully enclosed, self-sustaining, three-acre ecosystem in which eight people lived sealed off as they conducted one of history’s most ambitious — and weirdest — science experiments. Here’s an article about it from 1986 in The New York Times. (The first biosphere, in case you’re wondering, is the one you currently live in.) |
During that time, Ms. Poynter, an aerospace entrepreneur, and the crew had an experience that can affect anyone in long-term isolation: the third-quarter phenomenon. |
You’ve felt this before. You’re past the halfway point of something but nowhere near the end, and you start to drag. It’s the “decline in performance during the third quarter of missions in isolated, confined, and extreme environments, regardless of actual mission duration,” according to a study published in 2018 in the Journal of Human Performance in Extreme Environments. |
“We are all going to feel like we’ve had it up to here with this, and that’s normal,” Ms. Poynter said. “The only thing I can say is be patient.” |
Mr. Knoff, the researcher in Antarctica, echoed the sentiment. |
“Not every day can be sunshine and penguins,” he said. “You will have bad days, weeks, months, and the highs and lows will oscillate faster and higher as the months roll on, but stay focused on the positive and have a goal in sight.” |
He added, “Although not entirely accurate during an Antarctica winter, the sun will always come up tomorrow!” |
How are you getting through isolation? I want to know! Tweet me @timherrera. |
Our friends at Wirecutter, a product recommendation site owned by The New York Times Company, buy a lot of stuff. So this week, I’ve asked Jason Chen, the deputy editor, to tell us about one recent purchase he absolutely loves. |
Even though the second bedroom in our apartment is hardly ever used (and is now my “office”), the comforter in there had always been mildly embarrassing. A few years old and more floppy than fluffy, it was one of the first things I replaced at the beginning of the pandemic. I chose this extremely affordable, down-alternative one from the Wirecutter guide because, well, it was affordable, but it’s actually even better than I thought it would be: cozier, loftier and deserving of more than twice-a-year use. Nobody would ever guess it costs just $30. |
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