Now that many of us are in the midst of coronavirus community-spread, we are being told to stay home. Now, several cities are enforcing the stay at home order by telling citizens to quarantine or face fines. Citizens can still go out for essential business like work or healthcare needs, but the bulk of our time will be at home. You would think that in our society, one where everything comes to us by computer or a quick call on the phone, we would be prepared for this sort of impromptu hibernation, but many people are getting stir-crazy.
This morning, I saw an Instagram post begging people to stay home, illustrating how a person can spread the coronavirus even though they might feel okay. And for those who feel invulnerable due to age or general feeling of vigor: someone with the coronavirus can feel perfectly fine and spread it to someone who is immunocompromised or vulnerable. So if we aren't concerned for our own health, we should be concerned for others. We should also want to stem the tide of people with COVID-19 that have to go to hospitals so that we don't overwhelm our medical facilities.
So what can we do at home besides stare at the walls around us and scream? Here are 10 activities that may help with quarantine boredom:
1. Work out- if you don't have any weights or exercise equipment at home, there are Youtube videos with great strength and cardio workouts. There are also wonderful yoga videos which will help if you miss your yoga studio.
2. Dance- put on some music and dance like no one's watching. Your family and pets are probably watching, but who cares? They're stuck with you even if you've played "Good Vibrations" three times in a row and are coming dangerously close to accidentally head-butting your husband while dancing. (This was me a few days ago.)
3. Read- this quarantine is a good time to read any books that you may have been meaning to get to.
4. Stream shows/movies- you're probably already doing this one, but now is a great time to catch up on a series or discover new shows or movies that you hadn't heard of.
5. Be creative- now is a great time to draw, write, paint, sing, play an instrument, sculpt...
6. Eat creatively- now is also a great time to release your inner chef with all those foods you have stocked in your pantry.
7. Hobby it up- re-visit old hobbies that you didn't have time for.
8. Turn your home into a spa- trade massages with your significant other or family members, take a nice bath, do an at-home facial, etc.
9. Walk- there's no prohibition on walking outside, although health officials have recommended that we stay 6 feet away from others. Your dog told me to tell you that they want a walk.
10. Learn a language/work on a language- why not work on perfecting your Spanish? Or French? Or Klingon?
There you have it! 10 tips for how to weather this lock down. You can probably think of even more. Good luck! I'm off to watch Tiger King on Netflix. It looks intriguingly bizarre.
