A Comprehensive List of Things to Do to Avoid Going Slowly Insane During Quarantine

 

*Full Disclosure: I write this as I am slowly going insane during quarantine.

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If you’re living literally anywhere in the world, you’ve probably realized that we’re all in the same boat right about now… Work from home, don’t touch anything (or anybody), don’t leave your house, wash your hands, wash them again, Lysol your kitchen counters, do it again…

This pandemic is crazy. It’s turned all of our worlds’ upside down in the blink of an eye. This is the new normal for who knows how long, and it’s stirring up a lot of anxiety for me, and probably for you too.

I’ve been quarantined at home for two weeks now… It’s been an adjustment to say the least.. I just moved into a new condo, so I’ve thankfully had a lot to do around the house, but as the place is coming together more and more, I’m becoming more and more anxious about what I’m going to do with all this time on my hands.

SO - I’ve started brainstormed a couple things I’d like to do (or have done) that maybe you’d like to do too. See my list below:

 

TIPS ON WORKING FROM HOME

  1. Get dressed and make your bed

    Seriously - it will make your first action in the day a productive one and you’ll feel much better going about your day.

  2. Create a commute for yourself

    • My sister gave me this tip and I LOVE it. On a typical work day you get ready for the day, and then leave your house. It probably takes you anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes to get to work and that gives your brain a chance to ease into (and out of) the day. Now, we’re all going straight from getting ready right into work and it’s a bit of overload on our systems. Try adding in a morning and evening “commute” to and from work that mirrors the time it usually takes you to get to work. Walk around the block, take a short bike ride, and breathe in some fresh air before starting your day.

  3. Do NOT work from your bed

    • Over-time you will train your brain to think that the bed is a place for work and not for sleep, so it’ll be harder to get to bed at night. Plus differentiated spaces will help create the separate of home from work and work from home.

  4. Embrace the video chat

    • Like others, our teams have started hosting virtual lunches/happy hours where we all log onto Zoom or Microsoft Teams and share what were doing and see some familiar faces. Now, it doesn’t totally satiate the need to see a real human in real life, but it was oddly comforting and really fun!

  5. Create hours for yourself!

    • Just because you’re at home doesn’t mean you are available 24/7. Make a strict working schedule for yourself which will help you separate your work time from your home time. For example, I block off my calendar from noon-1pm every day for my lunch break. I start answering emails at 9am (no earlier) and stop at 5pm (no later).

  6. Listen to new music

    • Studies show that listening to new music is good for you!!! Turns out that when you listen to a song you’ve never heard before, the reward center in your brain activates - releasing endorphins through your body. (We know we all need a lotta bit of that right now)

    • My co-workers and I started a collaborative “Song of the Day” playlist on Spotify where we have a rotating list of 20+ people where someone new picks the theme every day. Once that day’s theme is announced, we all go on the playlist and upload our song that we feel fits that theme. One theme per day (no repeats! We have an Excel tracker), and one song per person a day. It’s fun to break up the workday and get your brain thinking about music. Plus it’s fun to silently (or not so silently) judge your coworker’s taste in music hehe..

Here are some great resources on Remote Work/ Working from Home

BECAUSE you need entertainment that isn’t netflix

NATURE

Games / Quizzes

  • Here’s a list of an online version of pretty much every game that exists… I’m talking video games, board games, card games, word games, etc… Honestly, it’s the holy grail of all things gaming & the perfect addition to your Zoom party.

  • The Auction Game - where random items show up on the screen and you have to guess how much they sold at auction for.

  • Have you heard of the Wiki Game?? You get a start page and an end page and have to navigate there in the least number of clicks.

CULTURE / ARTS

Learning

FOOD

Learn how to cook!! Maybe conquer one recipe a week if you’re a beginner and crank that number up if this ain’t your first rodeo…

  • If you ever wanted to learn how to make pasta from an 84-year-old Italian grandmother, now is your chance. Seriously… An experience this awesome isn’t free, but if you can scratch up $50 of your stimulus money, go ahead and register for a Virtual Cooking Experience with Nonna Nerina

  • If you’re looking for a free option, Food Network has live and on-demand cooking classes that you can follow along on!

  • Sameh Wadi from World Street Kitchen in Minneapolis is taking to his Instagram stories to teach you fools how to cook (please note: I am one of those fools)

Reading

TV & MOVIES

  • If you have a public library card (or university ID) - you can stream over 30,000 documentaries, classics, and indie films like “Lady Bird” and “Moonlight” for FREE on Kanopy.com.

  • And if you have a movie or show in mind, but have NO IDEA where you can watch it, JustWatch has your back. Type in the title and it will tell you all the places where you can watch it. (Game changer honestly)

  • Outside magazine put together a list of all of the adventure films you can screen, FOR FREE! Since a lot of the film festivals have been cancelled, many of them (like SXSW, D.C. Environmental Film Festival, Reel Rock 14, and Mountainfilm) are showcasing films that would’ve been screened! What are you waiting for!!! Get at it!

If you’re still needing a little Netflix time, Google Chrome has an extension for existing Netflix subscribers called Netflix Party that allows users to simultaneously stream with friends. It includes a chat window and has play/pause functions that sync for the entire group. Perfect for watching Tiger King with all your friends and family at the same time.

Here’s what I’m watching:

  • Tiger King

  • 100 Humans

  • SuperGoop

  • The Good Place

and I might even bring back my 2011 blog “A List for the Cinematically Deprived” if you all want to tell me what else I should tune into…

i HATE TO SAY IT, BUT yOU nEED TO kEEP WORKING OUT

So I don’t do this on a normal day-to-day basis, but I also walk several miles to and from work everyday, so I get my steps in. Now? I walk 15 steps from my bed to the couch, and another 20 to get to the bathroom… Not exactly the same. The gyms are closed, the weather hasn’t been great, so that leaves us all to our “at-home gyms” which are probably the exact same as our living rooms…

Here are some resources I’ve found to keep some endorphins in my body:

  • DoYouRumble on Instagram puts out some crazy good 30-ish minute workout classes multiple times a week that are made to make you SWEAT. HIIT, Cardio, and Boxing! and the best part? They save them right to their page so you don’t have to watch live!

  • CorePower Yoga is offering free online classes!! And they’re AWESOME!!

    • On-Demand & Anytime: Its special collection with free access has been updated with 20 brand new classes to check out.

    • Live for the full-effect: It's also streaming live classes each day at 7 a.m., 12 p.m. and 5 p.m. CT. 

  • Start a 30-day workout routine

  • Push-Up Challenge — take a video of you doing 10 push-ups and tag 5 people to do it with you

  • Peloton is offering free 90-day trials (normally 30 day) for its app so people can work out at home. 

  • The Bill Coors Wellness Center is offering its workouts of the day here.

  • Chicago Magazine has a lengthy list of free at-home workout opportunities here. 

  • A bunch of Chicago workout places are taking to Instagram to post daily workouts, or go live! Check out some of them below:

    • Healthy Hood Chicago is going live on their Instagram for daily workouts (sometimes more than 1 per day!) Schedule for each week is in their feed.

    • Shred415 is going live on their Instagram to do hour long, sweaty af workouts! Four 15-minute intervals will get you sweating in no time. Weekly schedule is on their feed.

    • Dynamite Kickboxing is posting daily workouts to their feed to get your body right!

    • Crosstown Fitness has posted daily circuits to their feed for you to follow along on

    • Y7 Studios does HipHop Yoga on their Instagram Live Wednesdays at 10am CST and Sundays at 12:30pm CST.

  • And if it’s nice out: Check out AllTrails for hiking trails near you

Tried all these and it wasn’t your jam? This random article that I found has an opinion on the best 5 at-home workout apps.

And THAT INCLUDES Checking in on YOUR MENTAL HEALTH

  • The World Health Organization put out some mental/psychological considerations during this time… Here’s the link

  • Try meditating - before you shoot this down, there are TONS of different meditation techniques and styles - it doesn’t have to be the whole “imagine yourself on a beach” thing…. Here are some great resources to get you started:

    • @chill_out_chi is offering free 10-15 minute meditations every day! Tune into their Instagram Live at 9am CST everyday, or a Zoom session at 12:30pm CST Monday-Friday.

    • LuLu Lemon recorded a short nature-oriented guided meditation for you to listen to. Listen here

    • Download the Calm app, which will teach you breathing techniques. And while you’re at it, look at their Daily Calm calendars which give you a daily inspiration on how to bring calmness into your life.

    • Listen to the sounds of nature in 8 National Parks

  • Journaling is a great way to get the mess out of your head… No matter what your goal for journaling is, this guide will help you get started.

  • Honestly - you should take some advice from a guy who has been social distancing for 50 years! Billy Barr is the only resident of his Colorado town and he offered some great insights on how to better manage isolation.

THINGS YOU DON’T WANT TO DO BUT SHOULD PROBABLY DO

  1. Switch to Natural Deoderant

    Okay so hear me out on this one… I switched to natural deodorant a little over a year ago and I am NEVER going back! I won’t lie, I’m kind of a sweaty girl so deodorant is pretty important to me. I was noticing that a lot of my shirts were getting pit stains (ew) that wouldn’t come out no matter what I tried… UGH! So I did a little research and found out that the yellow pit stains you get on your shirts aren’t actually from your sweat, but rather a reaction that your sweat has with the aluminum in most “normal” deodorants. !!! What! AND apparently the aluminum in the deodorant clogs up your sweat glands making you actually sweat MORE! WHAT?!

    So - I read up decided to switch to a natural deodorant to get rid of the pit stains and the excessive sweating. Good news? It worked and I love it!! I feel like I sweat a lot less, and when I do sweat it’s not as stinky as it used to be. Huge plus.

    So why is now the perfect time to switch!?:

    Because when you’re switching to natural deodorant, your body needs to expel all of the shit that got into your body from your normal deodorant… okay… so? SO - you get stinky. Like REALLY stinky for the first two weeks… Like, almost hard to be around stinky. But now that we’re all in quarantine, don’t have to go to work, and don’t have to see anyone - no one else will be able to smell your stink except you! So do it! I dare you! I promise you won’t regret it.

  2. Go through your file cabinet

  3. And time to clean up your desktop

  4. Clean out your closet

    • and DONATE it!! Do you have a friend who is in need? I always give my clothing to a women’s shelter rather than Goodwill

  5. Throw out all the old medicine (and makeup) that’s hiding in the corners of your bathroom

  6. Clean out your work backpack, purse, and wallet

  7. Check your bank and credit card statements

  8. Change all your bills to automatic payments and paperless billing

  9. Fix that one squeaky thing in your house that always bothers you but you never do anything about

    • Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about… we all have something like this

  10. Clean out your inbox. Work. Facebook. Personal email — get that shit CLEAN

  11. Turn on your car every so often — you don’t want that battery to die!

  12. Organize the Tupperware Cabinet…. it’s time..

And Some Feel Good Stories To Get You Through the Day

Have something else I should add to this list?! Let me know in the comments below!

I Would love to get more input and keep this as a living file so we can all use it as a one-stop-shop to keep us sane :)

Unapologetically AngeeAngela VerishOpinion, Quaratine, Stay Home, COVID-19, Corona, Corona Virus, Shelter in Place, Home, Mental HealthComment