It’s easy to feel lethargic, especially when you have nothing much to do at home. Aside from boredom, being idle is also one thing we must battle every day during quarantine life. Some activities, including playing video games, trying our hand at creating delicious food, or crafting, can be great ways to fend off sluggishness and ennui.
But remaining healthy and staying on top of our fitness game are also important, especially in a time when our health and immunity serve as the first line of defense against sickness. To achieve these, maintaining optimum mental health and getting our daily exercise are needed. The following are some tips on how to maintain optimum health in both mind and body during isolation.
Eat Superfoods
Incorporating vitamin-rich seeds and greens in staple foods and finding healthier alternatives to common snacks are becoming mainstream and continue growing. Thanks to social media, you can find copious amounts of healthy recipes using non-meat and vegetable-based ingredients. Such recipes include using seeds like quinoa, flax, and chia, which can greatly contribute to providing you with your daily source of protein, fiber, omega-3, antioxidants, and other nutrients.
Quinoa can either be made into a healthy salad or a nutritious porridge topped with fruit and seasoned with cinnamon and honey; chia can be turned into sweet pudding using milk, and flaxseeds can be ground into flax meal and used as an alternative to flour for your baked goods.
Other traditional veggies that can also boost your immune system are found in vitamin C and E-enriched microgreens, which can also be enjoyed in salads like quinoa. Beets, known for regulating blood pressure, boast an inherent sweetness, making it a healthy dessert option or a great addition to your sandwich to give your sub a hint of sweet flavor.
Meditation for Mental Health
Staying confined within months at a time can greatly take a toll on our mental health. When cast aside, stress can accumulate and manifest in illnesses. As a preventative measure, you can opt to give meditation a try. Simple and easy, meditating can be done by sitting in a quiet space and emptying your mind for five to ten minutes, once or twice a day, ideally at the same time, to turn it into a habit. To further immerse yourself in the experience and make it even more relaxing, you can set the mood in your meditation spot by adorning it with flowers, scented candles, and incense.
The most common meditation techniques require being still and quieting the mind, but other forms of meditation can be more suited for other individuals. Some types of meditation that don’t require staying still are tai chi, transcendental, and walking meditation. Tai chi and walking meditation combine mind concentration, breathing focus, and physical exercise, while transcendental meditation is done by repeating and focusing on a word or sound to silence your thoughts. To identify the form that perfectly suits you, it is best to try a little of the various forms, and once you’ve found your match, you can get started right away.
Staying on Top of Your Fitness Goals
Rendered temporarily closed by the pandemic, fitness centers and gyms can no longer provide people with spaces and equipment to help them stay fit. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle, not only for the upgrade in appearance it can give you but more for the numerous health benefits it’s coupled with, is now more important than ever.
To make it possible for you to still get your daily exercise even at home, you can bring the gym to your house by using your existing equipment or simply making do with the household items you already have. A great idea would be to turn your empty shed or garage into your personal gym for a better workout experience.
You can covert any free space into your fitness center by simply performing cardio exercises that you already know or using exercise equipment. If you want to adopt the same atmosphere similar to that of gyms, you can improve your own space by outfitting it with mirrors or installing an audio system, so you can listen to your favorite tunes and stay pumped up during your cardio sessions.
Covering its floor with silicone coating can also give your home gym the protection it needs from daily wear and tear and from scratches made by moving around heavy equipment.
During these times, staying mentally and physically fit by giving yourself time to relax, eating healthy, and remaining faithful to your daily workout routines can be a challenge, but with the right motivation and unyielding determination, maintaining good health in all its aspects is made easy.
