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In the past week most of our lives have been flipped upside down. In between elbowing our way through the grocery store and trying to set up a home office at our dining room tables, we’ve forgone some of the daily rituals that we didn’t realize had been keeping us sane.
Totally understandable!
Now that we’ve hunkered down, I want to offer a few suggestions to keeping yourself sane at home. These are mostly exercise and nutrition based, since that’s my thang.
1. Develop a new routine. Whether or not you had a “typical” day before all of this, you had some structure in the way you went about your business. Assess how things have been going the past few days and identify your points of weakness. I find a lot of people are saying stick to your normal routine, but your normal routine didn’t involve staying inside your house all day so that’s not the most practical advice. If you used to workout in the morning and now it’s better to workout at noon, then switch up your routine but stick to it. You were able to get into a routine based on your days before this, so now that they’ve changed you should be able to develop a new routine based on your current situation.
2. Stand up and move around! If you have an Apple Watch, you’ll get that inevitable wrist tap at the 50th minute of each hour if you’ve been sitting. If you don’t, set a timer. Get up and walk around the house or walk around outside. Walk 5 houses down on your street and 5 back. You’ve eliminated essentially all the walking and moving you’ve typically done in your routines- to your car, to your office, to your desk, to your coworkers’ offices, to get your lunch from the refrigerator, to a meeting, etc. You have to make up for those missed steps!
3. Take calls on a walk. I have to give a shout out to my dad here. For as long as I lived at home, whenever he was working from home he’d have his headphones in and be walking all around the yard on calls. Picking up branches, pulling out a couple weeds, making rice for his lunch, trimming a bush- I’m not kidding. A more sane person can just take a walk during a call! Especially if you don’t need to be referencing any papers/your computer, you’re not tied to a landline. As long as the sun is out, get out. This doesn’t just have to be work calls, either. Friend and family catch-ups included!
4. Get in your workout. So many platforms are offering at home workouts for free or reduced- even Orangetheory through their app! Start something new. Plus, the outdoors are free to use. Start walking outside or running. If you don’t feel confident running outside yet, start a 5K training program. I’ve seen a lot of people posting that working out may be on the back-burner because you’re stressed about other things, but try not to let yourself get too comfortable sitting at home avoiding your workouts. You can take a few days of rest, but you’ll be feeling restless after a while.
5. Schedule and structure your meals and snacks. Saved the big one for last. I am a stress eater! Some of us are even more busy now that we’re home, so use the convenience of being right near your kitchen to structure your day of food. I still plan to meal prep on the weekends just like I did when I had to leave the house. I’m planning to give myself a normal lunch break, then a couple snack breaks throughout the day. Making meal and snack appointments will eliminate the grazing that comes with being at home for many of us!
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