210420 Taking care of yourself mentally and physically during the coronavirus

210420 Taking care of yourself mentally and physically during the coronavirus

Being cooped up in your house is akin to being snowed in during the wintertime. It can almost make a person feel stir crazy, especially if you don’t have some sort of a plan to protect your mental and physical health.

Let’s look at the mental aspects of this first. If all you do during the day is sit around and watch the depressing news about this virus, pretty soon, I am certain it will start getting you down.

Order books from Amazon, rejuvenate your Kindle library and catch up on all the reading you meant to do over the past year. Read your newspapers, read your periodical magazines, or better yet, do some writing and start a blog.

The blog can be something that interests you a great deal. If it’s interesting to you, it is going to be interesting to other people too.

There are several good blog-building sites out there but the one I recommend would be WordPress.com. It is easy to set up and the free version is just that, free. If you upgrade to the premium or the business model it is the same as having a website, which now you do.

At first, I started with a website but eventually it became too costly to operate. By moving over to WordPress, I was able to do everything I could do on the website, at a minimum of what I was paying for the website set up.

You can submit some of your articles to a local newspaper. Write about something that you are interested enough to be involved in as a passionate hobby. Do some research so you know enough about what you’re talking about to have at least some basis of knowledge to share with others.

Some people enjoy doing puzzles; personally, I can’t stand doing them. My wife, on the other hand, does all of the puzzles she can find and she is very good at it. Some people play card games on the computer, again I can’t stand that either.

My mental relaxation comes primarily from reading and working in the garage trying to build different weightlifting equipment, fixing our cars or building something for the house.

Interspersed between these mental activities are physical ones. Since I have access to a fully equipped gym, that’s where I do most of my exercises. However, if I don’t feel like going out there I go into my office where I have an image 510 rack loaded machine.

Although I’m not particularly fond of working out with machines, they are better than a poke in the eye and this one does help keep my physical condition somewhat up to par. Not on the same level as it was when I was much younger though.

If you don’t have access to any equipment, there are other things that you can do around your house to maintain your fitness.

For instance, if you have stairs, you can do numerous exercises on them. Here are a few things to try. Squats to the lowest step that you are safely able to do and immediately followed up with calf raises on the lowest step while holding onto the handrail for balance. Do push ups on the steps, working down to the lowest step possible.

Another option may be using a solidly built kitchen chair. You can squat to the chair, do calf raises holding onto the back of them, do leg raises to the chest, you can do triceps raises, leg extensions all with the chair and stretch out your lower torso with the chair.

If you have the La-Z-Boy style chair or couch you can work your lower legs by closing the leg rest with your hamstring muscles., leg raises, leg extensions, flutters, curl ups

The point to all of this is to use your imagination to become involved in something to engage both your mind and body.

You can do exercises such as leg raises, flutters, and reverse hyperextensions on your bed with your legs hanging over the edge.

If you think you have to have the latest and greatest treadmill, think again and just start walking. You can walk around the house, inside the house, walk out to get your mail if you live in a country as I do or you can walk out in the woods.

If you have a bicycle, get on it and ride. You don’t have to have all the expensive equipment to get a workout. Once you get this through your head, your life can be much simpler and cheaper and you will be just as well off as those spending their money buying useless stuff.