Since the Corona pandemic started, lockdowns have become a tough but necessary measure in most countries around the world to reduce infections. After a couple of days, they can become simply exhausting, if you fall into a bad routine that just makes the day-to-day life boring or even stressful. But with some simple tricks you can keep motivated and active during such a hard time. We are happy to share some of our ideas.
- Regular exercise
The first thing you can do is to establish an exercise routine. During lockdowns many of us don’t leave our homes to work and miss out on important daily steps and calories burned. Many miss their team sports or fitness center workouts. Luckily there are many motivational and interesting fitness programs that you can easily find on YouTube or other platforms. From a 30-minute intense workout to hour-long yoga sessions, there are countless activities and sports to be found. For most of them all you need is a matt and your training clothes. Try to keep moving! Mental and physical health are intertwined, and these exercises will train your body and relax your mind. And don’t forget to go outside. A walk in a park with fresh air will definitely boost your mood.
- Healthy cooking and eating
For many of us cooking is a fun activity, but it can become exhausting when you daily have to prepare every meal for yourself. Very quickly we can fall into boring routines and cook the same meal over and over again or turn towards the microwave and frozen meals, letting them become our new best friend. But without a balanced and various diet we can rapidly lose energy and motivation. To overcome this, try to challenge yourself. Learning new culinary skills can be very (ful-)filling. A great way to start your chefs’ career is making your own pasta. It doesn’t require many ingredients or time. We have already published some very scrumptious recipes on our blog, maybe you find your next culinary adventure right here on our blog.
- Limit your phone time and separate your workspace
When we work from home, we lose the boundary between work and free time. Many people have a workspace that is separated from their homes. During lockdowns this changes for many of us. After regular working hours, emails might still rush in and disturb our leisure time. To prevent the mixing of work and free time, try to mute you phone and other work devices or even turn them off completely. It can also be helpful to assign a designated work area in your home which you leave when you’re done for the day. This helps you to stop getting reminded of work and gives you the opportunity to focus on other things. But of course, many of us are students and miss sitting in classes with others or studying in a library. Luckily platforms like Discord or Zoom give us the option to still stay in contact with peers and study together. Online libraries have greatly improved their online stock so you can find interesting new literature on the web. This combination can make your student life during this pandemic more interactive and fun.
- Talk to friends and family
Emotional connections suffer most during lockdowns. It can become exponentially more frustrating not being able to meet with friends and family. Try to avoid text messaging and (video-)call others instead. To see and hear other people gives us a more profound feeling of connection. It is obviously not the real deal, but better than messages that lack the depth of real human interaction.
We hope you find some of these tips helpful! During these very unusual times it is very important to develop a good routine and cherish the things that make us happy. If you are a student, check out our tips and tricks for uni article as well. It might help you organize your student life. Take care!
Written by Florian
