We are all passing through a difficult and confusing period and there are no strict clear guidelines on what to do with our daily personal life beside one recommendation that I hope is already clear for everyone – stay at home.
Many of us are not working and days can become much longer when you don’t have anything productive to do, but whether we like it or not, there is not much we can do about it, so why not make the best out this strange situation?
We have been living in a fast-paced society filled with stress and often too busy for us to cope, a pressure cooker waiting to explode; this indeed might be the best opportunity for all of us to slow down, relax and appreciate the quiet we have been craving.
People who are working from home can enjoy the fact that they don’t have to dress up in the morning and rush out of the door just to spend some hours in traffic or in the subway. People whose routine has been disrupted can let their hair down and enjoy some time at home knowing they might not get this opportunity again any time soon!
Until this is all over we might feel lonely sometimes, but there is one thing that I observed about “social distancing”: the term is entirely wrong because now we are closer than ever to each other because even though we are not physically together we have time to reach out to all our friends and relatives and the means of technology are helping us to keep contact with our loved ones. Sometimes our busy schedule doesn’t allow us to maintain these relationships, and we tend to postpone all these calls and catch ups, now is the perfect opportunity to reconnect and rekindle relationships and make up for lost times! There are a host of apps out there to chat to multiple friends at a time such as ZOOM, or HOUSE PARTY if you want to also include games in your chats!
There is no special or perfect ‘recipe’ about how to make the most of your free time while staying in isolation and we all have our different ways in filling up our free times, but there are some things that we can all do before this is all over.
Whilst Netflix might be the first go-to we all can think of, I can tell you there is so much more to do while you are in isolation than spending entire days and nights on your couch which ultimately will not help you feel better.
For example, I usually couldn’t find the time to fit working out in my weekly program, we now have plenty of free time and best of all, you don’t even have to go to the gym if you want to exercise; there are thousands of websites that are offering free workouts and many gyms moved their activity online and are offering webinars that you can access easily. Sport is a great mood booster and a quick workout in the morning will make you feel instantly better. You can check out the Barrys Instagram pages, they are offering live Instagram workouts almost every morning. For your children or the elderly, Joe Wicks, otherwise known as the body coach, is also doing live workouts on his youtube channels keeping people of all ages mobile and moving and millions of people are logging in and taking part.
Another problem of our busy lives is that we don’t usually have the chance to eat proper meals and healthy food, but now you have the time to replace that granola bar that you eat on your way to work with a fresh breakfast, and you can bake the cake that you always wanted to make but never had the time. Most important is now is the perfect opportunity for those quick to claim they can’t cook to get out of cooking, now is the perfect opportunity to try, fail, and try again; there are countless recipes that you can find online with easy to follow steps. What better opportunity then to put those phones we are glued to down and appreciate learning to feed ourselves good home cooked fresh and clean food.
Why not set yourself a daily challenge of learning one thing a day! Doesn’t have to be big or small, elaborate or just a new word, you can pick up an online course, quiz games, books you can dive in, explore fantasy books, watch real life documentaries, understand your history, make a list of your all time favorite films and re-watch them, anything that you are personally remotely passionate about, now is your chance to invest that time in exploring your passions whilst you are on lockdown and not wasting precious time counting days on end.
If none of the above works for you, why not work on bettering yourself. Maybe a spa day with home skin treatments and facial masks to take care of the face you will carry for life. Maybe some time for meditation and yoga to kick out all negative energy, the anxiety and stress. Activities that your body will thank you for and you will feel better after doing them.
Even though it can be hard to stay positive when your whole life seems to have been swept from under your feet and your usual routine is no where to be found, but you have to remember that you are not alone, as we are all in the same boat. We don’t know how the immediate future will look like, but I can surely say that our mentality will change and we are not going to take things for granted anymore; when things will get back to normal we are going to enjoy the little things and will learn to value a simple walk in the park, a drink with our friends or a family reunion. In this situation we are not powerless, because we are the ones who have the power to make this end, and it can be translated in a simple way: #stayhome.