When you are at home during the whole day, especially if you live alone, it challenges your mental strength, too. And if we mention the big temptation to watch Netflix and check our fridge in every 10 minutes, this is the perfect recipe to destroy your dreams of the healthy life.
Learn new skills
In these hard times we must pay attention to both mental and physical well-being. We can for example check and start some online courses in the field that we are interested in. I would say this period is the best for self-development.
Think about your future. What kind of things are you interested in? What is going to be your future profession? Are there some kind of topics you want to dig a bit deeper? If you use this lockdown time developing yourself, you might soon have a pocket full of new skills.
There are plenty of channels to help you learn something new. There are Google and YouTube where you can find all kind of stuff for free. There are also pages like edX, New Skills Academy and Udemy where you can find cheap, accredited courses.
Try some meditation
I encourage you to be motivated and inspired – take the first step towards your dream! And if you need some break, try to do some meditation (yes, I know you are going to ask “Do what?!”). Meditation is actually a good way to calm yourself down a bit. At first I didn’t believe in the power of meditation. After doing it every single day I understand more and more why it is so good for your mental health.
Exercise
But what about our bodies? During normal days, we usually keep in shape ourselves with running, jogging, bicycling or going to gym. At this moment, we can still go out but we have to be really careful (wear a mask or gloves and keep distance from other people). So what is the best time to do some outdoor exercises? I would say the best times are late night and early morning when most of the people are at home sleeping or maybe watching tv.
There are hundreds of good exercises that you can do at the same time with everyday chores. For example, put your back against the wall, bend your knee in 90 degrees and just sit. You can read, use your laptop or phone at the same time. Even after 20 seconds, you will already feel the burning!
In case you haven’t find a good workout plan, try this out! This work out plan is according to time, not quantity. Do 30 seconds each exercise and then 20 seconds break.
Remember to do a good warm up! Do some jumping jacks, high knees or high heels stationary running, arm rotating and a few squats. It is also good to do some stretching: bend down, straight your legs and try to reach up to the ground.
Workout plan (10 exercises, 6 minutes workout)
- Regular push ups (chest and triceps exercise)
- Incline push ups, use any kind of chair that’s stable and will keep you alive (chest and triceps exercise)
- Superman back extension (back exercise)
- Squats (leg exercise)
- Stationary lunge (leg exercise)
- Back extension, lift your opposite leg and arm at the same time (back exercise)
- Russian twist (core exercise)
- Mountain climbers (core exercise)
- Bicycle (core exercise)
- Heel touches (core exercise)
All the main muscles are involved (chest, triceps, back, core and leg). It will be tough, take longer rests if needed.
After a good workout your mind and body will thank you. So stay active, stay positive and find new challenges for yourself!
-Márk
Cover photo: Saara Lehtonen
