Professor Paul Crawford, Director of our Centre for Social Futures, shares his thoughts on lockdown, cabin fever and the joy of nature.
We know that the prolonged confinement and isolation during the pandemic has brought increased levels of anxiety, depression and irritability. Over 4.2 billion people worldwide found themselves in some kind of lockdown and social restriction since the pandemic began (IEA, 2020). Even now, many are still in or only slowly emerging from this indoors life that has led to great turbulence and suffering alongside new opportunities to reflect, adapt to different work, leisure and social implications.
During this challenging time, and particularly in the first lockdown in 2020, the weather was kind to people in the UK and nature appeared let loose, literally, into our quieter skies and urban environments. Foxes and many other animals took to the streets! People not given to watching birds or looking at flowers found that nature in or around their homes relieved the long hours of isolation, waiting, and boredom.
In my own case, living on my own, away from my wife and children, I knew that nature would provide its own magical respite care and soften the blows. The first things I bought online, alongside canvases to paint, were a squirrel-proof bird feeder, seed, a book on British birds, and a monocular so that I could not only watch nature but also extend my vision beyond the limits of my home and garden, even to checking out the craters on the moon at night!
In this period, I also decided to counter lockdown by writing a book on the social history and impact of cabin fever with my eldest son Jamie, a data analyst. He was isolating in a lodge along the Ottawa River in Canada with his artist partner, Andrea Wilkin (see an excerpt from her painting ‘On Ice’ featured here, which shows them trying to fill the wintry space during lockdown).
The book, Cabin Fever: Surviving Lockdown in the Coronavirus Pandemic, published by Emerald, tells the story of the mental health impacts of living in remote or confining situations on land, at sea, in the air and in space. The book ends with a series of antidotes to the experience of lockdown, not least green or nature-based remedies. We highlighted how nature can prove an important way to reduce the burden of prolonged confinement indoors, even in digital access in images, videos and sounds of nature when conditions demand.
During the second lockdown over the winter months in the UK, our access to green spaces and sitting outside in gardens or parks that the spring sunshine in the first lockdown supported made things much more difficult emotionally and socially. Then people took a fuller hit of cabin fever and there will have been few in the UK who did not find it a challenge mentally. Many struggled to keep their homes a sanctuary rather than a prison in the dark, cold months.
Now, as we start to leave our cabins again, jabbed with vaccines, hopeful of a more predictable and normal future, nature is resurgent. The daffodils and apple blossom are out, the buds are opening on the trees, and the orchestra of nature has started to get back on stage. Enjoy the art of nature, let your minds rest in its beauty and diversity, talk to the flowers, hug the trees, and stay safe and creative.
Professor Paul Crawford is Director of the Centre for Social Futures at The Institute of Mental Health, The University of Nottingham. His latest book, Cabin Fever: Surviving Lockdown in the Coronavirus Pandemic was published in March 2021 by Emerald.
The featured image is taken from 'On Ice' ©Andrea Wilkin 2021, and used with the artist's permission. Not for reproduction or reprint.
References
IEA. (2020, April). Global Energy Review 2020: The impacts of the Covid-19 crisis on global energy demand and CO2 emissions. Retrieved from https://www.iea.org/reports/globalenergy-review-2020