by Paloma Alassaf
We didn’t expect COVID-19 (Coronavirus) to hit hard and fast. One day you’re out walking around freely, sometimes carelessly and the next thing you know, you’re locked down with your whole family. You didn’t know the last time you saw your friends was going to be the last time for the next six months. You are now stuck inside, and life feels like it’s stopped. Don’t fret. If you get cabin fever from being stuck inside, here are three simple ways you can stay moving!
Time for exercise but make it fun!
Some schools are online, and you’re stuck home all day. After homework, you can try these
simple ways to get easy exercise.
- Go for a walk around your neighborhood and take your dog with you – Be sure to maintain a safe distance from others and respect other walkers.
- To keep up with the trend of being outside, you can ride your bike, jog or even play tennis or Pickleball.
- If you don’t want to be outside, just move around more inside your home! Dance like no one is watching or jump on a mini trampoline! Laugh out loud by yourself or with someone you love! The most important part is to have fun and play!
- When it comes time for chores, turn on your music and move. No one likes chores and the music will help you enjoy working!
Change is Okay
Don’t be too hard on yourself. This is a really tough time for everyone, and I mean everyone! If you gained a little bit of weight or lost some weight you didn’t want to lose, that’s 100% okay. You’re not on your regular routines anymore and you have to figure out how to adapt to this change. Find the rainbow in every situation. If you’re gaining weight, then move more. Don’t let yourself get depressed, just move!
Be resilient and find one thing positive each day. Be grateful for one thing a day. If that doesn’t work help a friend. –Mahatma Gandhi said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
A Reward? Say Less
You got your exercise in and now it’s time for a reward. A little change in eating habits included with your new ways to exercise will jump start your journey to feeling better about you! Check out, Think Outside The Lunchbox Cookbook – 250 Plant Nutritious Recipes The Whole Family Will Love (www.ThinkOutsideTheLunchbox.today). Cooking even gets you moving, and you get to create a new dish you’ve never had before. Involve your family. They most likely also need some positive happy vibes and the energy in the house will be good for everyone.
Don’t forget about me
This is a blessing in disguise. That is one sentence you really have to wrap your head around and it can be quite difficult. Now is the time to lose yourself and be someone else. This doesn’t mean take on someone else’s persona. This means to take the time to figure out who you really are and discover new things to try out. Take this time to grow. Just because we are stuck in the house, doesn’t mean that we can’t take the time to sit with yourself and recreate a be the best version of yourself. Find a quiet space and make it your own. Stretch your body, do some yoga or meditate. Let the positive energy flow and breathe in all of the good vibes.
Let me tell you about my personal journey
At this point, you might be thinking, “What does she know? She doesn’t know me or knows
what I do and don’t like!”. Trust, I write this because I have personally been through this
negative thought process myself and I am still going through it. Gaining weight and losing weight. Turning from an extrovert to an introvert. That was one of the biggest changes I made. I am learning how to get out of the house again with walking my dog or walking with my husband. Walking lets me forget we’re in this pandemic that we didn’t expect to see. The weather is getting cooler in the morning and at night. No one likes to walk in the heat
anyway.
My goal isn’t to lose weight even though that would be a nice addition. The goal I set for myself is to walk at least 30 minutes a day and come home with one thing I am grateful for. I take that one thing and I write it down in my journal. If a journal isn’t your thing then come home and speak it out loud. Speak the gratefulness into existence! Positivity needs to be spoken into existence and you’ll slowly find more and more things you’re thankful for in life and your thoughts will slowly turn positive again and you’ll feel the happiness you have longed for!
These are baby steps. Don’t dive straight into the pool, test the waters a little bit. Change is hard, but don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Only you know what you are feeling and only you can create happiness for yourself. Keep it simple and remember, you got this!
Ruth Bader Ginsberg once said, “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a
time.”