Being home all day can affect teens in a variety of ways, from losing contact with friends, family, and coworkers all the way to not being active or productive. According to an article by the scientist.com an “absence of human contact is associated with declines in cognitive function.” Covid 19 effects everyone’s ability to interact with other people due to the risk of contracting the virus. What does this do to the many teens left at home? If you’re not being able to interact with other people your age or anyone outside your immediate family you may feel a sense of dread, loneliness, laziness, unproductive, overly tired or being tired but not being able to fall asleep.

It is easy to know why you feel lonely at a time when you’re not being able to interact much outside of your home but what about everything else?

Why Do You Feel A Constant Sense Of Dread And Being Unproductive: This can be linked to feeling unproductive anxiety according to an article by the alantic.com “this kind of anxiety causes us to focus on the future and worry constantly both of which take up a lot of emotional real estate. It’s a vicious cycle: the more we worry the more we try to control.” How do you control this anxiety? Many people search for the news to get new information to stay updated on the situation, but the article says that by gaining the information just leads to worsening the situation by making it easier to worry about what’s going on and then focusing on the future instead of the presence too much.

Why Do You Feel The Tiredness/ Being Tired But Not Being Able To Go To Bed At Night: The tiredness can be because you feel emotionally drained. You don’t always have to be physically exhausted to sleep after a day of worrying, missing friends, being depressed it can all add up to where your mind is so overly tired to dealing with it all that you can take what many people deem a depression nap. But if you’re tired and not being able to sleep at night it can be connected to being on electronic devices all day according to, sclhealth.org. The blue light that is emitted by your devices is bad for your eyes, it restrains the melatonin or what make you sleepy and makes it more difficult to fall asleep. If you see upsetting or interesting information, it is going to make it even more difficult to go to sleep because you are focusing on what came up.

How Can You Help Your Self Feel Better Start With A Reset For Your Brain? Have a self-pamper day use a face mask, exfoliate, shave, do your make up, dress up/dress comfy, watch your favorite show do whatever you usually do not take the time to do for yourself.

Try Taking Steps To Combat Being Unproductive: Break down what you have been wanting to do into small chunks. If you feel like you don’t know when to start what you want to accomplish, set a timer, take 20 minutes and then if you don’t feel like stopping after the 20 minutes look for another task to start. Go in another room instead of your bedroom so you are forced to work instead of being able to find other things in your room.

How To Help With Being Overly Sleepy And Not Being Able To Fall Asleep: Find a friend or family member whose willing to listen talk about how you’re feeling and discuss ways that will help you feel better. You could also consider seeing a therapist if you don’t feel comfortable talking with a friend or family. Try not to dwell on the future and start living in the now. How can you help with being able to fall asleep? Trystaying off your phone for the last thirty minutes of the night so that the blue light will not disturb you sleep schedule and ruin your rem sleep.