How It WorksStaying Healthy and Happy at Home
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
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
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
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
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.
Pick up a self-care book
A good self-care book can both calm the mind and enrich the brain! From mindfulness colouring books to the law of attraction teachings, these reads will help you through the pandemic and beyond!
- The Self-Care Project: How to let go of frazzle and make time for you’ by Jayne Hardy
- The Kindness Method by Shahroo Izadi
- Art of Mindfulness by Emma Farrarons
- Self-Care for the Real World: Practical self-care advice for everyday life’ by Nadia Narain and Katia Narain Phillips
- Good Vibes, Good Life: How Self-Love Is the Key to Unlocking Your Greatness by Vex King
- The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change by Charles Duhigg
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.
Mess Free, Stress Free
No one wants to live in a mess, having a clean home is aesthetically pleasing and leaves you with a space you’re happy to spend time in. But the act of cleaning itself can be a sure-fire way to beat stress and calm down! Instead of thinking of it as a chore, turn doing your ordinary household tasks into a mindfulness activity.
If you have a lot of clutter, start by selling your used books DVD’s and games to WeBuyBooks in exchange for cash! With our super easy, quick and stress-free 4 part selling process you’ll have rid of your unwanted items in no time! We’ll even provide a free postage label and collect them from your door – so there’s no need to leave the house.
If you want to take your cleaning to the next level, check out some of these great reads that’ll give you clear space and a clear mind:
- Hinch Yourself Happy: All The Best Cleaning Tips To Shine Your Sink And Soothe Your Soul by Mrs Hinch
- How To Clean Your House by Lynsey, Queen of Clean
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.
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
Great Ways to
Entertain Yourself
From movies to quizzes, good books and game apps, we’ve got lots of fun ideas for you to keep yourselves entertained in quarantine, such as:
- Catch a Movie
- Book Recommendations
- Stay Connected
- Use Social Media Positively
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!
Stay Focused Working from Home
Working from home may sound like a luxury in theory, but being productive with all the distractions surrounding you is easier said than done. Here are some top tips to successfully work from home.
- Stick to your routine
Wake up and get dressed in normal clothes ready for the day, this helps you mentally prepare for the day and get in the right mindset. - Move around
Don’t just sit in the same spot all day, take breaks to move around, get some fresh air to recharge your brain. - Keep in contact with colleagues
Make sure you check in with your team regularly, just like you would in the office. Creating to-do lists and sharing them with your supervisor will help you remain motivated, focused and organised.
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