Staying at home during the coronavirus pandemic has upsides, like more quality time with family, but the downsides can aggressively impact daily life, from finances to mental health.
TODAY's Carson Daly and NBA star Kevin Love can relate to the anxiety that a lot of people are feeling right now, as both men have dealt with and spoken openly about their experiences with mental health issues. On Wednesday, Love joined Carson for a candid chat about the subject.
To start, the Cleveland Cavalier, 31, commented on how the "unknowns" we're all experiencing right now are making people "even more anxious ... They don't know when they're going to work again ... how this is going to change us coming out of this."
Love shared that maintaining a routine, including watching movies, exercising, deep breathing and unplugging from technology, is helping him in these uncertain times. He also recommended a book on anxiety to Carson, "My Age of Anxiety" by Scott Stossel.
"I'm just such a creature of habit," Love explained. "Getting things done, I think, alleviates stress ... I think the accumulation of things done over this time is super healthy."
Carson added that he's had a similar strategy, especially for his kids.
"I need mental focal points," the father of four said. "We (have) a schedule for the kids. Everybody, get up at nine o'clock, we're going to do the pledge of allegiance, like you're in school ... Then I'm going to work out and ... devote an hour to this or that."
Another crucial activity for Love's mental health: reaching out to people he's not quarantining with. At the moment, he's at home with his girlfriend, Kate Bock, and dog, Vestry.
"Get on your Zooms, your Instagram Lives, FaceTimes," Love suggested. "There's times throughout the day where myself I'll just say, I got 10 minutes, I'm just going to pick up and call a teammate I haven't talked to, or a friend back home or my sister who's back in Oregon right now. Just finding ways to stay connected through this time, I think, is incredibly important."
Amid all the challenges, Love is still finding time to give back. He's bought hundreds of meals for health care workers and put $100,000 from his foundation into the pockets of staff working at the Cavaliers' arena.
"It was really ... important to me just to help the people that have helped me over this time," he said. "I've been able to take a step back even after the donation to those people that I see, you know, at least 41 nights out of the year playing home games."
Love first opened up about his panic attacks back in March 2018 in an essay published in The Players’ Tribune. The experience left him with a "spinning" head, a feeling of "chalk" in his mouth and trouble breathing because the air felt "thick and heavy."
“Everyone is going through something that we can’t see … Mental health is an invisible thing, but it touches all of us at some point or another," he wrote.
Addressing why he decided to speak publicly on the issue, Love explained, "Partly, I want to do it for me, but mostly, I want to do it because people don’t talk about mental health enough. And men and boys are probably the farthest behind."