Since early 2020, the spread of the deadly Coronavirus has completely changed most of our lives.
Experts have advised us to stay at home to help reduce the spread of Covid-19. For many of us, this has proved very challenging. Things that we did for entertainment like going to the cinema, socializing and eating out at restaurants, even contact sports have all been forced to stop.
So, most of us have stayed at home during the pandemic apart from going outside to visit our local store or go for a walk. Most of us have never had this much free time on our hands. The easy option is to watch movies and television shows on streaming services like Netflix or spend each day glued to your smart device browsing through the internet and social media platforms. However, some people have decided to use this free time to do something positive.
Over the last few months, lots of people have been receiving their vaccinations, so there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Why not come out of this terrible situation a more improved person and do something constructive with this free time you may never get the luxury of having again.
1. Improve your Cooking Skills
Cooking a new dish isn’t just about preparing a delicious meal, but it’s also a superb exercise that involves problem-solving, which can help keep your brain occupied with something constructive. Here are a few of the benefits of cooking at home:
- Helps relieve stress: Working from home, taking care of the kids, not being able to do the many things you used to enjoy doing can cause a lot of stress. Focusing on preparing ingredients and using your imagination in the kitchen is a great way to reduce stress.
- It can lift your mood: According to research, experts claim that cooking can be a therapeutic activity. Even just preparing a light lunch can help boost an individual’s mindset. Cooking helps stimulate your senses, which helps release more endorphins that can make you feel happier.
- It can help with mental illnesses: Statistics and reports are showing a huge increase of people suffering from mental illness during the pandemic. For years mental health clinics have used cooking to help people suffering from anxiety, addiction, and depression. Because cooking helps people clear their minds and gives them confidence, it is a great way to curb negative thinking.
With most restaurants closed at the moment, even the ones that are open seem to enforce strict regulations to help practice social distancing, going out for a meal is not the same as it once was. Why not learn how to cook a great-tasting meal at home, who knows, it might taste better than going to a high-end restaurant!
2. Learn how to Play the Guitar
Many of us have dreamed about being able to play the guitar. For whatever reason, most of us have never even tried. Perhaps we didn’t have the time to give it a go, we were worried we would fail, perhaps we couldn’t afford the classes or a guitar. However, during the ongoing pandemic is for most of us, the perfect time to pick up a guitar and learn, and here is why:
- There are plenty of ways to learn online: Streaming sites offer users an opportunity to stream online tutorials for free. Teachers and guitar enthusiasts are constantly uploading videos to streaming services like YouTube to help viewers learn. There are plenty of websites with chord sheets to help you learn how to play your favorite songs such as chords guitar finder.
- Health benefits: Playing the guitar is a great way to build confidence, help you stay focused, improve fine motor skills, help relieve stress, improve your memory, and boost your brainpower.
- Learn at your own pace: Unlike private or group classes in a physical classroom, learning online allows you to get to the next level at your own pace. Some students react well to pressure, however, not everybody succeeds this way. Learning the guitar is difficult at the beginning, so when a teacher asks you to learn advanced things like queen chords, you might struggle. Learning online allows you to improve and move to the next step when you feel you are ready.
Just imagine when things go back to normal. You are at a party or camping with your friends and you take out the guitar and start playing songs!
3. Learn a Second Language
If you are a keen traveler, enjoy different cultures, or want to expand your career prospects, learning a new language is a very positive thing to do with your time during the pandemic.
Studying a new language helps us to develop many different mental abilities no matter how old we are.
- Helps boost your memory: When you learn a second language you naturally pay attention to body language cues to help you determine what others mean to say, which is a great way to help boost your memory.
- Makes you better at problem-solving: Studies have shown that those who are bilingual speakers use cognitive muscles to delegate multiple languages. With this brain training exercise, they often find it easier to juggle other tasks.
- Speaking a second language makes you a better communicator: Being able to express yourself in a second language is great, but it will also help you to perfect verbs used in your first language too.
Similar to learning the guitar, learning a new language takes dedication and hard work. However if you want to make traveling more fun, expand your work opportunities, or perhaps learn your family’s first language, now is a great opportunity to do so.
4. Exercise at Home
With many of the gyms closed around the globe and contact sports not going ahead, it is easy to laze around the house complaining about how unfit you are getting. The other choice you have is to create a workout routine at home to help you maintain a healthy lifestyle.
There are plenty of advantages of working out at home in comparison to going to the gym. You have the freedom to work out whenever you want. Your home gym is open 24/7 if you like. You make the rules and you don’t have to wait around all day to use the equipment. You don’t have to rely on the gym to provide you with good music as you are the DJ in your own house.
In public gyms, you can easily get distracted. It often seems like people get a gym membership to make friends with others instead of going there to maintain their bodies. Especially during the current pandemic, contact with others is not only frustrating while you’re trying to work out, but also helps spread the virus. Working out at home helps you stay focused and helps you avoid contracting Covid-19.
Buying your own personal gym equipment nowadays is affordable. If you are on a tight budget, there are websites with people selling second-hand equipment at a fraction of the price of the originals. Nowadays, due to modern technology, streaming sites offer plenty of workout classes for free online. From experienced yoga instructors to bodybuilding trainers, the choice is endless.
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