Stay inside. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. Six feet apart. Easy on the toilet paper. Can you hold your breath? Feeling feverish? Do you want to risk going to a center and getting tested, or infected?

   Breathe. Lie down, take a deep breath, and hold it. This serves two purposes — if you can do that, odds are you don’t have what we’re all afraid of, and your nerves may begin to settle. There’s no shame in admitting we’re afraid right now. It’s the right response when things we care about are lost or in jeopardy.

   What isn’t the right response is panicking, fighting, resisting recommendations. One glance at any social media will tell you how bored people are, and how cabin fever’s already begun to set in. For the sake of everyone, please just be strong. Take a deep breath, and do what’s right.

   There’s more to staying calm and staying in than that, though. So cozy up. Get in your comfiest clothes, since you’re not going out anyways, and grab some tea. Or coffee. Or a little lemon water. Maybe just water. Turn on your favorite TV show, or to-be favorite TV show, and take a deep breath. We’ve all been working hard for the past few months, and it’s okay to relax. If you do the right thing, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of.

   Instead of focusing on the reasons to be afraid right now, the best thing we can do for our mental health is to sit back, put our feet up, and not exert ourselves. This might be the longest break from hard work that we get in a long time, so it’s important to embrace it. Maybe it’s time for a new hobby, or maybe it’s time to sleep fourteen hours a day. Go ahead and call that your hobby, nobody can judge. We’re all just trying to make it through together.