Being thrown for a loop during this pandemic has shown to come with various emotions and reactions toward what to make of all of this for ourselves. School campuses aren’t open and non-essential businesses are closed until further notice. This has shown to result in a lack of structure for our daily routines. 

Activities such as sleep, exercise, overall wellness and stress relief are being challenged to adapt to the confines of our homes. 

Now, whether it’s required of us or not, much of our time has resorted to our time online. 

During the month of April, being Stress Awareness month there are suggestive methods and activities via social media to help the best support our stress-relief and wellness. 

Keep it moving.

Within these long days of shelter-in-place, we can be caught spending much of our time sitting, eating and watching endless hours of Netflix shows. These all take little effort from us and in some way put our minds at ease, temporarily. However, what our minds might gain from these distractions our bodies lack.

It’s all about those first steps. Anything from stretching in between your next Zoom meeting or moving on to the next hour-long episode for a good 30 seconds helps us maintain flexibility. Taking a 15-minute walk outside. Although we’ve been high alert to limit our outside presence and contact with others as much as possible we still need to get out of the house. 

These bits of movement will hopefully encourage a more challenging full-body circuit workout for some time between 30 minutes to an hour.

More can be read about how to improve our physical health here. 

The simplicity in creativity.

Although this time wasn’t meant to be delegated toward our productivity we can take it as a positive outlook in ingraining new habits.

Take this time to enrich your cooking skills. It’s easy for us to get bored with our own cooking and result in delivery services to help to spice things up for us as we’re not able to dine-out. With this, it’s also important to support local food places. 

However, this time can be taken to develop our eating habits. Not just regulating our dietary habits, but to also eat well. Enrich your chicken and rice or add some flavored greens to your avocado toast. 

When having to make dinner here are some starter recipes. 

Reading is a great way to keep our brains active.

Other creative endeavors that you don’t need to be already skilled in, but are rather just fun and comforting, are giving yourself craft projects or learning a new dance challenge. 

If we can benefit anything from the rise of Tik Tok is that dance challenges have really honed in their own online stage. Users are creating 30-second dances that could take a week or so to get down. Paired with new and old hit songs this comes to our advantage to learn and connect with one another and enjoy movement.

Other creative outlets include painting a small canvas, accomplishing a 200-piece puzzle, learning to make a dalgona latte or replicating some sweet baking goods from Netflix’s “ The Great British Baking Show.” If we’re going to binge on TV and Instagram feeds we might as well do it to our benefit.

Stay aware by being aware.

With this constant news cycle surrounding the coronavirus, there’s only so much that can be done to know what leads should be followed in prolonging the spread.

One thing for sure is to be aware of the clout.

Recent criticism has come about toward social media influencers misusing their platform during this time. Interjecting their presented lifestyles on Instagram and misinforming their followers by using the spread prevention of this virus as a boost to their brand. 

Whether selling their own pricey line of essential oil or body-fitness detox, these methods can actually be dangerous and counterproductive to our health.

In light of what we’ll continue to experience in the month ahead, it’s all about taking care of ourselves so we can directly and indirectly help others be safe. 

These activities aren’t to be taken as prevention methods but rather as useful and healthy habits to take into consideration while we’re all cooped up. 

Social distancing has ignited various reactions from us all. Whether or not you mind being inside all day, it’s only natural that our emotions wind down to going crazy, lonely or tired. These are activities to make use of the slow pace that counters our usual fast-paced days in the U.S. 

With all the abruptness this has brought into our lives, it’s important to keep yourself grounded, stay safe and take care of yourself and others. Support local businesses. Filter your social media to enrich and encourage yourself out of your limitations.