Every day, we wake up to a brand-new world. When was the last time you checked the news and the headline wasn’t about the coronavirus? We are in a whirlwind of emotions as we try to practice physical distancing, stay home as much as possible, and not enjoy the things we used to enjoy. This is a new normal that the world we are all sharing. But this new normal doesn’t come without its own challenges. People are suffering from emotional and mental health problems that then lead to their physical manifestations such as headaches, lower back pain, chest pains, and the like.
Experts said that people should be cognizant of these problems so they can address them. Doing exercises indoors and eating healthy food will go a long way toward guarding your physical and mental health. Just make sure to protect yourself with a mouthguard, workout gloves, knee pads, and arm pads when doing heavy exercises. You don’t want to get injured because of a particularly hard exercise. With emergency rooms full, this isn’t the best time to need a hospital.
Use Fresh Ingredients
To battle this virus, you need a strong immune system. Your body needs all the nutrients and vitamins it can get from healthy ingredients such as fresh fruits and vegetables. Since you are staying mostly at home, cook your own meals using the freshest produce you can find. Use green leafy vegetables for fiber, folate, carotenoids, vitamins C and K, calcium, and iron.
Many healthy recipes can be found online. Take advantage of staying at home to start making your own healthy meals. This is just one of the upsides of trying to stay home as much as possible—you can start learning how to eat healthy instead of relying on fast-food restaurants to make your meals.
Stretch and Exercise
Are you working from home? After sitting at your home desk for hours, you’ll begin to feel pain in your lower back, arms, neck, and many other parts of the body. Make time to stretch your muscles as not to strain them. There are plenty of desk exercises you can learn.
Some of the examples are low lunges, doorway stretch, cat-cow flow, and 30-second planks. You should also try to do at least 50 jumping jacks to give your heartrate a spike. Working from home is not an excuse to be idle.
Stay Hydrated
Hydration is still the best way to achieve optimal health. Drink at least eight glasses of water or more a day. Drink every time there’s a chance or you have access to water. Since you’re staying home most of the time, tap water is the cheapest option. Stay away from sugary drinks such as juices. Yes, they contain water, but they are also packed with sugar.
If you are averse to drinking water as is, you can add frozen berries, cucumber, and mint to enhance the taste. You should also stay away from coffee, tea, and energy drinks because they may disrupt your sleeping pattern. The more hydrated you stay, the more you’re boosting your immune system.
Enjoy Family Meals
Staying at home means getting to enjoy family meals. This is something that people can learn from being quarantined at home. Use this opportunity to share meals with the family and become a role model for healthy eating to your kids. You can also get your kids involved in preparing healthy meals. Cooking meals is a rich bonding experience that your kids will remember for the rest of their lives.
Establish Routines
Just because you need to stay home more often than before doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have routines. These are very important for children. Let your kids plan meals, exercises, playtime, and the like. You can even involve them in cleaning and organizing the house. Remember that your kids have boundless energy. Now that they cannot play outside or meet with their friends, they are getting bored and uninterested.
You should try to make things as normal for them as possible. Order takeout food from their favorite restaurants at least once a week. This will bring a sense of normalcy to these days that just drone on and on.
It has been five months since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus as a pandemic. Is it getting any easier? The world has forever changed and there’s no going back to how things were before. The only way people can survive is to try to move forward. That begins by taking care of your body and mind.
