Top 10 Activities To Do While Stuck In COVID-19 Quarantine

With coronavirus looming over our heads, and people being told to self-isolate/quarantine, the average person's daily routine is being greatly impacted. We live in an extroverted world, so being cut off from social contact is not easy for most people. Luckily, the introverts of the world are used to be self-isolated, so I have come up with a list of 10 activities you can do to get through the self-isolation period and not go stir-crazy!

1. Call your friends and family. With the improvements in technology, we can now video-call people on the other side of the world and talk to them in almost-real-time. Call your relatives. Check up on them. See how your friends are doing. Go through your contacts list on your phone and see which of your friends you haven't spoken with in a while. Call them out of the blue and see how they're doing.

2. Read a book. This might be a good time to brush up on your survival skills. Maybe you have a cookbook with some new recipes you would like to try. Raid your bookshelf.

3. Learn that instrument you've been ignoring. Now is the time to try out that guitar that's been gathering dust in your basement! There are free apps and video lessons for beginners. Several musicians, such as the Arkells, have been offering lessons during this self-isolation period.

4. Open your windows and get some sunshine! Open up the blinds, get some airflow going, try to get some of that Vitamin D! It's good for your mental and physical health. If you have a bird feeder, this is a good time to become acquainted with the local birds in your area. Sit by the window with your bird guide in hand!

5. Clean the whole house! Everyone is downsizing now. I have probably gotten rid of 50% of my belongings in the past 5 years. Let's be honest, we all accumulate some junk. This is a good time to send some of that stuff to the landfill. Once the pandemic clears up, you can take some of your old belongings to Goodwill or other charities in your area.

6. Begin writing in your journal. There are several journals that come with writing prompts, so you can get those creative juices flowing. I am currently writing in 3 separate journals. 2 of these have writing prompts which get my brain fired up before I switch to my other journal for a more free-flowing style of writing.

7. Exercise. Most of us already live sedentary lifestyles. Being told not to leave our houses reduces that physical activity to almost nothing. Luckily, there are solutions! Try beginning your day with a quick, full-body stretching routine. 10-20 minutes of stretching in the morning reduces your chances of injury throughout the day. The app "TrackYoga" includes a variety of video-recorded yoga classes for any beginner to intermediate yogis, and provides a good introduction to the practice for newbies. Finally, bodyweight exercises. For people with no workout equipment at home, bodyweight exercises are your friend. I usually do my stretching routine followed by a set of pushups, situps, and squats. Doing 3-5 sets of these exercises should take less than 30 minutes and keep you in decent shape until the gyms open back up. You can tell by the length of this entry that I feel physical activity will be CRUCIAL to maintaining mental and physical health during this time.

8. Video games. They are cheap, plentiful, and can eat up an absurd amount of time. The Halo: Master Chief Collection is currently $50 on Steam. That series can easily eat up several DAYS for campaign mode. Something else I used to do was put on a podcast in the background while I would play a puzzle game. This works for any puzzle, really. Put on a radio show and do your crossword or Sudoku. That way, you are keeping your mind engaged and training your brain while also passively absorbing knowledge from the podcast.

9. Catch up on your Netflix queue. This should be the easiest one for most people. We already watch Netflix on a regular basis. You can finally watch that show you've been putting off. With the variety of streaming services we have (Netflix, YouTube, Vimeo, Amazon Prime), there is something for just about everybody. There are even "virtual hikes", which are exactly what they sound like. If you can't get outdoors, technology will bring the outdoors to you.

10. Learn a new language! Duolingo and Babbel are two of the most popular language learning apps right now. They are easy to understand, eye-catching, and gamified. Lessons only take a few minutes, so you can easily fit them in at your own convenience. A few lessons per day, and soon you'll be able to make connections between your lessons and the real world! I've been studying Spanish for approximately 2 months and I am far more comfortable with the language now than I was when I was down in Peru. I did things backwards. Should've learned the language first. But now I'll be better prepared for my next trip to that part of the world!

Well, there you have it. 10 things to keep you from going crazy during your quarantine. How many of you already do these things? What other strategies do you use to stay sane when stuck indoors? Let me know!