Laoise: "There were definitely days where my sense of purpose was very hazed"

How did you cope during the first lockdown?
I have mixed feelings, and I don’t know if I’ve completely processed them. I started therapy weekly, back in January. I had wanted to do that for a really long time anyway, and it wasn’t like I was in bits or there was any kind of rock bottom, I just wasn’t exactly processing thoughts the way I wanted to. Luckily, I was able to continue therapy throughout all of the lockdown. I’m a bit of a homebody, I like Netflix and cups of tea. I’m not a huge partier, so when the pandemic happened I had been training for it.

But there were definitely days where my sense of purpose was very hazed. I’d wake up and not have anything to do for the day, and that was quite challenging for me. I am the type of person who likes to give myself things to do, and to have purpose.

Did you find comfort in the idea that everyone else was going through the same thing?
I compare everything to everything - colours to colours, one outfit to another - but then I also unwittingly end up comparing myself to others. In a way, there was a relief during the pandemic, knowing that nobody else was able to do anything.

Your new single touches on mental health...
It’s called ‘Healthy’, and it took me a while to name the song, but there’s a lyric in the pre-chorus that says, “I don’t’ know why I’m not thinking I’m messing this up, I guess it feels healthy, I’m used to unsteady.” Initially, I wrote that without thinking about the title, but the more I listened to it the more I went, “This is it”.

It’s about a romantic relationship that I’m in, where I always had this feeling of, “you don’t seem like you’re going to leave, you seem like you’re here for the long haul...”

It was weird for me, but I also felt like if they did leave, I wasn’t going to fall apart. It was healthy but not codependent.

Do you have any best practices that help you keep healthy on a daily basis?
It’s finding out what your version of healthy is, I think. ‘Healthy’ isn’t all fruit and vegetables and running and getting up early every morning and not drinking. It’s balance, and what works for you and makes you thrive. For example, I don’t gravitate toward exercise.

Making things easy on ourselves is something we don’t do in Western society, and that can be quite damaging. Making things as easy as possible, especially during a time like this. If you feel like you need some air, you don’t need to go on a 30-minute hike, you can just go sit outside.

• Laoise’s ‘Healthy’ single is out now: