• Get 10% extra on your first app offer with code APP10
  • Free postage or home collection!
  • Don't know what an ISBN is? Find out more.

Staying Healthy and Happy at Home

It’s important now – more than ever – to look after ourselves both Physically and Mentally.

Why not use this time to reflect, recharge, reinvent and revolutionise yourself? Whether that means keeping busy and being productive or relaxing and enjoying yourself, do whatever feels right for you!

Now is a great time to get creative, learn a new skill, find a new hobby or improve your health and mindfulness. We’ve come up with some ideas to help you make the most of your downtime in lockdown.

Learn a New Skill

There are so many amazing free online resources around right now, it would be a shame not to make the most of them! From virtual courses to YouTube tutorials, you can learn how to do pretty much anything from behind your computer screen.

Learn a Language

Learn a Language

If you’ve always gawked in awe at bilinguals, now is your chance to be one of them! Check out Duolingo, it’s fun, addictive and free. With gamification poured into every lesson, it offers an interactive approach to learning, that doesn’t really feel like learning at all.

Get Creative

Get Creative

Why not try your hand at crafting and sewing? It’s certainly a useful skill to have, allowing you to repurpose items, save money and the environment – not to mention it can be fun! You can learn to make cool items out of everyday household items, fix or re-design clothes and much more.

Learn to Play an Instrument

Learn to Play an Instrument

Whichever instrument you fancy learning to play, there’s an online course out there to help you do it! If you’d like to learn the guitar, sign up for Fender and you’ll get 3 months worth of free online classes.

Perhaps you think you could be a wiz on the piano, and Pianu is a great place to start. Pianu offers online piano lessons, as well as a free catalogue of song tutorials to get you playing along with your favourite songs in no time.

Get Out in the Garden

Get Out in the Garden

Now is the perfect time to work on your gardening skills! Gardening allows you to escape into a world of nature, leaving you with a beautiful space to spend the sunny days in. From beginners to experts, here are a few of our favourite gardening books to inspire or improve your skills.

– Wild About Weeds’ by Jack Wallington
– Sweetpeas for Summer by Laetitia Maklouf
– ‘Small Garden’ by John Brookes
– Gardening Through The Year by Ian Spence
– Veg In One Bed by Huw Richards

Take some time for yourself

There’s a lot of pressure floating around social media to be spending this time being productive, but we’re here to tell you that it’s equally important to just take care of yourself! This situation is a lot to handle as we navigate the new normal, and feeling happy is first and foremost. So, make sure you pencil some quality ‘you time’ into your schedule.

Here’s how you could spend some well-needed relaxation time and stay mindful at home.

Meditation

Meditation has a long list of benefits, including allowing your mind to focus and redirect your thoughts to positive things. Why not add a little daily calm into your life by downloading one of these free meditation apps:

  • The Calm App offers a ton of techniques to relax the mind, reflect and meditate helping you to sleep more, stress less and live better!
  • Headspace is designed to help you train your mind and body for a healthier and happier life.
  • The Aura app is great for those looking for a personal experience, providing daily 3-minute mindfulness meditation based on your specific needs.
We're famous...

Healthy Body, Healthy Mind

Being stuck inside the house doesn’t mean you can’t keep fit and healthy! The temptation to neglect exercise and not keep an eye on what you’re eating is real but now is as important a time as ever to take care of yourself properly and strengthen your immune system.

It really is true what they say – healthy body, healthy mind. The better you feel, the easier it is to stay happy and positive. Eating well and staying active is a great way to relieve stress and pass some time in lockdown, and there are loads of resources encouraging you to get involved.

icon one
icon two
icon three
Read Responsibly...Read Responsibly...
Read Responsibly... buy and sell used books. WeBuyBooks saves a thirty-acre forest each year!
Read Responsibly...

Help With Motivation

If you’re in the mood for a high impact, home workout, check out Courtney Black’s daily live streams on Instagram or The Body Coach’s YouTube channel. Perhaps you fancy a spot of yoga? If so check out Daily Yoga for easy to follow tutorials.

For meal inspiration take a look at some of these cookbooks – some are focused on being healthy, some are just full of yummy food!

  • Good Food Eat Well: Cheap and Healthy by Good Food Guides
  • Lean in 15: The Shape Plan by Joe Wicks
  • Tasty Ultimate Cookbook: How to cook basically anything, from easy meals for one to brilliant feasts for friends by Tasty
  • Gordon Ramsay’s Ultimate Home Cooking by Gordon Ramsay

Missing movie nights with your friends?

Well, thanks to Netflix Party you can watch films and TV series with whoever you want online! It synchronises video playbacks and even adds a group chat to your favourite shows.

Exhausted your existing book collection during quarantine?

Check out ‘What should i Read Next?’, it allows you to enter a book you like and the site will analyse its huge database of real readers’ favourite books to provide book recommendations and suggestions for what to read next!

Stay virtually connected!

Video chat with your friends and family on Zoom. Zoom will allow you to chat with as many people you want at any given time and insert presentations which comes in handy for creating your own quiz nights!

Open 10% extra code Modal