Just because you’re living behind closed doors, with little to no opportunities to leave the house and go to the gym or spa doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take care of yourself. In fact, a lockdown or restrictions on your exposure to the outside world should give you a greater incentive to work on yourself a little bit more than before.
Remember how you’d always complain that you didn’t have enough time for yourself, what with all the work, family matters and socializing. Well now is the perfect time to do things for yourself, since there’s really no opportunity to do things for other people outside of your nuclear family.
To remember the most important rules of proper physical and mental self care, here are just a few tips you can take advantage of in between the shows that you’re binge-watching. Taking even as little as an hour out of your day to focus on your health will make sure that you finished this lockdown with enough energy and vigor in your body to return to normal life.
Watch What You Eat
Dieting may not be the easiest thing to do when you’re stuck at home the whole day with nothing else but your favorite shows or your favorite book. But it is necessary to, at the very least, understand what you’re consuming and what it’s doing to your body.
Many dietary mistakes are made because of the simple reason that people are ignorant of how their favorite foods may negatively impact their health. Look, we all have our favorite foods that we can’t live without, but if it means being a little healthier and more fit, I can assure you you’ll be willing to give up the mozzarella sticks.
but a proper diet doesn’t simply mean asking what other people did and what works for them. Each and every one of us has a different body, that’s built differently, functions at different rates and speeds, and of course all those dreaded allergies. You can’t have a diet that’s a “one-size-fits-all”. You got to look for the things that work for you specifically; the kind of body build you have, metabolism, where you live and what you do, even under the limitations of having to stay indoors.
So, the best bad for you, would be to ask a specialist for their advice on the kind of diet that would fit you in your lifestyle best.
Find a Way to Move
It’s understandable, that when you’re at work or outside, you’ll have those sudden urges to do something healthy with your body, whether it’s going to the gym or taking a quick jog.
Stuck indoors, however, feels a little different. It’s easy to become sluggish, lazy and immobile, when you’re sitting inside the comfort of your own home, with everything that you need within your reach. Who doesn’t just want to stay inside, relax on the couch the whole day and listen to some music.
But you need to move. Always. Regardless of what time of the year it is or how much free time you have; moving around is always important. Even when you’re stuck indoors, try to think of something to do that requires physical effort. You can start with something as simple as a jump rope, if your neighbors don’t mind, two doing extensive exercises without any of the gym equipment.
There are tons of training programs that focus on the idea of being able to train at home without the need for specialized gym equipment. You can find tons of these programs online, each one with their own targets and goals.
If you’re looking to lose weight, there’s some very efficient programs for you that don’t utilize any gym equipment. And while it would have been nice to take a jog, this is still an effective temporary replacement.
If you’re looking to build strength, you are also very lucky. You probably don’t want to fit gigantic gym equipment in your home, but luckily there are smaller, more compact multi-equipment, with which you can train all parts of your body, almost with the same precision and efficiency of their real gym counterparts.
Keeping the Mind Busy
It’s easy to start losing your mind after a couple weeks of doing nothing but talking to the same people, doing the same things, and seeing the same sites over and over again. What you need to do is find ways to keep your mind busy. One of the biggest dangers to the mind is routine.
If you keep on doing the same exact thing over and over again, your mind will just get used to the uniformity of your day and put less strain on itself. This means that it may start to lose some of its functionality.
So, you need to keep it busy by constantly changing up your day and trying to see what new things you can learn or do.
The brain functions kind of similar to a muscle; the more you use it, the more adept it becomes in a various number of functions that are important to your abilities as a human. Keep your mind challenged by trying to learn new things, thinking about things critically, but also giving your brain sometime to relax and think things over a little more slowly.
If you can keep your mind busy, the not only will you retain its functionality and capabilities, but you’ll notice that time will start to pass by a little faster, as you try out different things each day, creating new objectives and goals for yourself. A lockdown or limited access to the outside world is the perfect chance for you to train things like focus, critical and logical thinking, and so on.
Let’s not forget that mental health is just as big of an aspect of overall health as physical. By disregarding it, you may make yourself not only mentally, but also physically weaker. So just always remember to keep that balance of mental and physical wellness.