Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, self-care is an essential part of your routine. It’s a time of major adjustments for many of us – our new norms include social distancing, working remotely, homeschooling, and trying to make time for ourselves while staying at home. Now, more than ever, it’s important to check in with ourselves. Make time to step away from the noise, unwind, and do what makes you happy. Here are some tips on how to practice self-care while in quarantine.
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- Practice Forming Healthy Habits
- Try New Hobbies
- Upgrade Your Home
- Prioritize Mental Health
- Inspiring Self-Care Quotes
Practice Forming Healthy Habits
Due to COVID-19, we are all spending more time at home. Staying healthy while in quarantine is everybody’s goal, but it can be hard to resist stress eating and unhealthy habits. Use this time to examine your habits and make sure you’re not cutting corners on your health. Following general healthy living advice such as eating a balanced diet, staying hydrated, and getting enough sleep are the best recommendations for staying healthy during self-isolation. You can set a schedule for these habits using items that are particularly relevant to 2020, such as vote products.
Stay Active at Home
Physical activity benefits both the body and the mind. Healthy adults should aim for at least 30 minutes of daily physical activity. Take regular breaks throughout your day to stand up, stretch, or go for a quick walk. Consider trying an online exercise class to get your body moving. Think outside the box: dancing, cleaning the house, and playing with your kids all count as physical activity!
Eat Right
In times of uncertainty, it’s normal to feel anxious, sad, scared, and stressed. During periods of stress, we may find ourselves eating more than we need. Plus, staying at home and close to the fridge may also lead us to snack out of boredom. Consider planning your meals so you can get the essential nutrients you need for good health and balanced energy intake. While it may be tempting to reach for comfort food during this stressful time, make sure that well-balanced meals are part of your daily routine. This way, you can keep yourself in good shape while simultaneously supporting your immune system.
Get Enough Sleep
A lack of quality sleep can affect our physical and mental health as well as reduce our immune system’s ability to fight off infections. Adults should aim to get at least seven hours of quality sleep per night, but stress brought on by the coronavirus pandemic may have a negative impact on our slumber. Therefore, we should try to prioritize good sleeping habits and ensure we’re getting enough. To improve your sleep, consider establishing a regular sleep schedule that you follow on the weekends and when working from home. Try to avoid caffeine before bedtime, limit alcohol intake, and disconnect from electronics before going to bed for a good night’s rest.
Try New Hobbies
Being forced to stay home can be nice at first — a little mandatory rest and relaxation that gives a break from the bustling world. But after a while, it’s reasonable to be itching for something to do for entertainment. Think proactively of things you can do with this enforced time at home. Get back in touch with hobbies or activities you enjoy but rarely have time for, or learn a new skill. Maybe there’s a language you’ve always wanted to learn, but you’ve been too busy. Maybe you love jigsaw puzzles, but it’s been years since you had the time to do one. Whatever you choose to do, taking the time to seek out activities you enjoy is an excellent form of self-care.
Take an Online Class in Something Brand New
Maybe you’ve always wanted to try photography, dancing, or painting. If you’re looking to experiment with food, find an online cooking class to try a new recipe or make a meal with your kids. While staying at home amid the COVID-19 pandemic, this is the perfect time to hunker down and learn a new skill with an online class. Active learning exercises your brain — and you may find a new hobby.
Read and Listen
Whether you’re into mystery novels, historical biographies, or self-help guides, indulging your mind with a good book is a great way to practice self-care. If you’d rather listen than read, try an audiobook, compelling podcast, or the go-to playlist that always makes you smile.
Do a DIY Project
Stay creative while under quarantine by tackling a DIY project. To get inspired, put together a DIY vision board. Use a poster, magnetic board, or cork board to paste collage images you’ve cut from magazines or printed from online. Look at your board every day as a source of inspiration or motivation. For more ideas, check out this list of DIY project ideas you can try while social distancing at home.
Upgrade Your Home
Getting rid of clutter and organizing your home is an act of self-care. A clean, organized space can give you peace of mind and allows you to be more productive. Make the most of self-quarantine and stay-at-home orders by using this time to freshen up your space.
Put Your Favorite Memories on Display
Bring joy and personality to your home with photo prints and photo books filled with your favorite memories. While staying isolated at home, you’ll love having photos of your loved ones hanging as custom wall art. Use this extra time to finally turn your camera roll into a photo album or art piece you can keep in your home as a beautiful keepsake.
Clean and Organize Your Space
Giving your home a deep clean isn’t the most exciting task, but it’s a necessary one. Do all of your laundry, donate the clothes you no longer need, and tidy up like there’s no tomorrow. If your space feels tidy and fresh, your mind will feel calmer as well.
Prioritize Mental Health
As we face uncertainty amid the coronavirus pandemic, there are measures we can take to stay calm and protect our mental health. If you do anything with your downtime, it should be pampering yourself, reconnecting with what makes you happy, and prioritizing your mental well-being. Work on self-care and making time to do things that make you happy until we’re all back outside again. Need a few ideas? Here are some tips for making sure you’re taking care of your mental health during the coronavirus disease outbreak.
Make Time for Yourself
Right now, much of the personal time that was part of daily routines — time home alone, social time with friends, commutes — is not available for those with kids at home. Without it, we need to be intentional about making time to recharge and decompress. This time for yourself could mean using a nourishing face mask, walking around the block, watching your favorite show on Netflix, or designating time for one of your hobbies after the kids have gone to bed.
Connect With Friends and Family
Now, more than ever, it’s essential to stay connected with loved ones. Reach out to family and friends over a phone call, text, or social media to keep in touch during these uncertain times. Consider coordinating a virtual Zoom session with a group of friends to chat and catch up. If you appreciate a good piece of snail mail, send a thinking of you card to brighten someone’s day.
Create Structure and Routine in Your Daily Life
Having a consistent routine in your daily life is an important part of helping maintain your mental and physical health. Adding structure to your everyday life can help you feel more in control and centered. Being in self-quarantine may have altered your daily routine, but making a new one can be easy. Having a routine doesn’t necessarily mean you need to wake up at the same time every day and do everything in the same order. Essential pieces of your routine should be getting out of bed when it’s time to work, taking breaks, and finishing work at the same time you usually would if you were in the office.
Inspiring Self-Care Quotes
Self-care is an essential part of our health and everyday lives, and it consists of more than the occasional massage or bubble bath. When you feel overwhelmed and in need of a break, take a moment to read through these self-care quotes to refresh your mindset and give you some peace of mind.
- “Self-care is not a waste of time; self-care makes your use of time more sustainable.” —Jackie Viramontez
- “When you can’t find your purpose in a day, make it to look after yourself.” —Dodie Clark
- “Invent your world. Surround yourself with people, color, sounds, and work that nourish you.” —Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)
- “The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” —Sydney J. Harris
- “I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.” —Audre Lorde
- “Love yourself first, and everything else falls in line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” —Lucille Ball
- “The challenge is not to be perfect — it is to be whole.” —Jane Fonda
- “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” —Anne Lamot
- “An empty lantern provides no light. Self-care is the fuel that allows your light to shine brightly.” —Unknown
- “Self-care is taking all the pressures you are facing right now, and deciding to which you will respond, and how.” —Imani Shola
- “Carve out and claim the time to care for yourself and kindle your own fire.” —Amy Ippoliti
- “Find what makes your heart sing and create your own music.” —Mac Anderson
- “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” —Buddha
- “It’s not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and to make your happiness a priority. It’s necessary.” —Mandy Hale
- “Keep good company, read good books, love good things, and cultivate soul and body as faithfully as you can.” —Louisa May Alcott
- “… If you feel ‘burnout’ setting in, if you feel demoralized and exhausted, it is best, for the sake of everyone, to withdraw and restore yourself.” —Dalai Lama
- “It is so important to take time for yourself and find clarity. The most important relationship is the one you have with yourself.” —Diane Von Furstenberg
- “Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world.” —Pema Chodron
- “When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.” —Jean Shinoda Bolen
- “There is enough time for self-care. There is not enough time to make up for the life you’ll miss by not filling yourself up.” —Jennifer Williamson
- “You can’t pour from an empty cup. Take care of yourself first.” —Unknown
- “Caring for your body, mind, and spirit is your greatest and grandest responsibility. It’s about listening to the needs of your soul and then honoring them.” —Kristi Ling
- “Every time you make a commitment to your own self-care, self-love, and self-respect and then follow through, you build trust in yourself.” —Miranda J. Barrett
- “Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort. ” —Deborah Day
- “Learning self-care is like building your own lifeboat, plank by plank. Once you’ve got your boat, you’ll still be rocked by the waves of life, but you’ll have a feeling of safety, and stability that means you can pick other people up on your way.” —Nadia Narain
Wrapping Up
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