It is roughly five months now and we are still battling the COVID-19 pandemic. Many areas have already lifted quarantine restrictions and have allowed outdoor mobility (still with social distancing policies) yet the number of positive cases continues to rise, thus many of us still choose to stay at home to avoid contracting the Covid-19 virus from unknown carriers.
Being unable to go out of the house can be both a curse and a blessing at this time. To stay at home the whole day every single day may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it is necessary at this time. With that said, how can we keep ourselves productive and busy even if we are stuck at home?
Declutter the house and do some house improvements
One of the things that this COVID-19 quarantine might have afforded us is being able to attend to household chores. Dust off those cabinets and drawers, clean up fans and stovetops, throw out or give away heaps of your unused and unnecessary items. Doing some home renovations may be a good thing to be busy with as well. Fix those knobs and loose screws on the cabinets, wipe or paint the walls or stick some wallpaper anew, change furniture placements to give your house a new arrangement, etc.
Pick up on a previous hobby (or discover a new one)
The Internet can be your best friend as it can give you so much to do in just a few clicks of your fingers. Watch documentaries (or whatever you want) on Netflix; subscribe and listen to audiobooks and podcasts, go watch Youtube tutorials about cooking, baking or DIYs and put it to practice. Not fond of the internet? Read a book. Create some handicrafts. Cultivate plants and be a plantito/plantita.
Exercise
The quarantine left many of us inactive and make ourselves couch potatoes for months now that we only sleep, snooze, browse the internet and do it all over again. Just when we think that we are physically the same us before the quarantine started, we may not have noticed that we either lost or gained some weight. However, keeping those muscles active and warmed up is equally important as making sure we do not store too much fat in our bodies due to being physically inactive. So, see to it that you make at least 20-30 minutes of light-to-moderate exercises every day. Gyms may take a while to reopen. No workout equipment at home? Watch instructional workout videos on Youtube and perform the exercises.
Take care of your mental health (and your loved ones’)
Living for months during a pandemic is stressful. We can only hope that treatment will be discovered and used quickly to eliminate the virus and save the lives of people so that we can go back to our normal lives. People cope with stress differently and we hope that at the end of the day, everybody will be okay. Let us be aware of the reality of our current situation but do not let this inundate our thoughts and fill us with so much worry. It is important to be hopeful and happy amidst what is happening right now to protect our mental health. Let’s look forward with positivity while dealing with the issues that need to be dealt with during these times.
