There Is an Art to Isolation: Here’s a Guide to Staying Centered
How the Chinese tradition of confinement inspired my shelter-in-place self-care
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In Chinese culture, there’s an ancient tradition of postpartum confinement, or 坐月子 (zuo yue zi) in Mandarin. The literal translation is “sitting the month” and refers to how, following childbirth, a new mother will rest at home for one full month while following a strict diet and rituals (like avoiding cold air and not bathing) to help the body heal and recuperate from the arduous labor.
I’m Chinese American and when I was born, my grandmother came from Taiwan to Chicago to help take care of me and nurse my mom through a more relaxed modern adaptation of confinement. My mom didn’t wash her hair for a week and ate lots of chicken soup with sesame oil and pork liver soup with ginger, both nourishing “yang” foods to bring warmth to the body. When I cried at night, it was my grandmother who would rock me back to sleep in her rocking chair, letting my mom rest.
Just a couple days into my self-quarantine at my parents’ suburban home, I joked that this felt like Chinese confinement, only I didn’t even have to give birth to qualify. Because of the social isolation due to Covid-19, I desperately needed to find a silver lining by treating this time as an opportunity for self-care. A much-needed break from my perpetually jet-lagged lifestyle. No alarms, no Google Calendar reminders popping up constantly on my phone, and certainly no baby to worry about, so I could focus squarely on taking care of myself.
I looked inward, inspired by the overarching principles of Chinese postpartum confinement — resting, not going out for a month, and eating superfoods to restore health — to turn my quarantine into a productive time for self-care.
As a full-time digital nomad, I haven’t had an apartment in more than three years and last year spent 350 nights in hotels. By the time shelter-in-place orders came in from Governor Pritzker in Illinois, I’d already had all projects, assignments, and work trips canceled for the foreseeable future, a crushing blow as a…
