Covid chat "OFFICIAL" - 30th March.. 5 Top Tips from an "expert" remaining on Rockall in the Atlantic Ocean provided by skinnyjonny

[Skinnyjonny]

I hope you don’t mind but I’d like to share the story below which I’ve put out to PMRGCAuk North East members, and on Facebook, and it’s been received with a lot of interest and support. You can’t say you haven’t time to read it and it is extremely topical as it relates to self isolation. So here goes ….

As most of you know one of my hobbies is high altitude mountaineering and I get to meet some very interesting characters on my travels round the high peaks of the world. My good friend Nick Hancock is one of those characters. I met Nick whilst climbing in the Caucasus (Russia) when we climbed Elbrus together. Nick went onto running the Marathon de Sables the following year and then got the Guinness World Record for remaining in isolation on Rockall … a tiny rock 271 miles off the NW tip of Ireland in the Atlantic. Here’s are Nick’s Top Tips for self isolation.

"I hadn’t really thought about the parallels, but after a few media calls today, my time on Rockall appears to have made me an ‘expert’ on self isolation. Having been asked for my ‘top tips’ by a couple of journalists, I’ve come up with these, hopefully they’ll help some people:

1. Stick to a routine as much as possible. Use your normal daily routine as a template, but adapt as required. If you have kids they will particularly benefit from this, especially at the start of the day: get up, have breakfast, get dressed, clean your teeth, otherwise it'll be lunchtime before you do anything.

2. Stop doing things concurrently. In these situations you have time to fill, lots of it. Normally, you might get dressed whilst having your breakfast and drinking the morning coffee. STOP! Slow down. Have breakfast looking out of the window, appreciate the day, watch the birds, then have a coffee, then get dressed.

3. Following on from this, SLOW DOWN. In normal life we rush to cram everything we need/have to achieve into the day, including the commute. Now there's no commute, that's even more time to fill. Don't rush through each task, plan it properly and do it to the best of your ability.

4. Set yourself realistic goals and tasks for the day, taking all of the above into account. Unless your goals are urgent or a priority, don't kick yourself if you don't complete them all, there's always tomorrow.

5. This might be the most important: know that it will take time, days or perhaps weeks for you to adapt to this new reality. Remember you have been living in a certain, probably unnatural, routine for years, and both your mind and body have adapted to that. You must give them time to readjust. You will be uncomfortable at first, but it is amazing how we can adapt to our 'new normal' whatever that may be.”.

I hope you enjoyed Nick’s top tips and if you want to read more please visit rockallsolo.com/ as it’s a very interesting story. By the way, he is absolutely bonkers!!

Please take care, stay safe and keep in touch

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