The whole world is reeling under the impact of Coronavirus Pandemic.
As of today, the pandemic is spread to more than 200 countries with 1.5 million patients nearly infected with Covid19, and the death toll is around 85000.
In India, the number of COVID19 cases is growing steadily with 5000+ cases as now, and the death toll has crossed the 150 marks. Several countries, including India, have implemented lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus cases. People themselves are practicing self-quarantine and following social distancing to avoid the further spread of COVID-19. Several companies have given their employees work-from-home options and quite a few have suspended operations until further notice.
A strong sense of fear, anxiety, and paranoia is sweeping across society. In these times of unprecedented crisis, our Indian government is handling it remarkably well by announcing a lockdown and ensuring our people are safe. It is important to understand that everybody reacts differently to these adverse times. While some may find it comfortable to be holed up at our homes and minding our own businesses, others cannot cope up that well. Getting holed up in our homes for a long time can impact our mental health and cause fear, anxiety, and depression. However, we must look at the silver lining during this phase.
There are plenty of ways to keep ourselves engaged during these days of self-isolation. It is important to retain some sense of normalcy for our well-being. Nearly most of us have a lot of free times in our hands. This is the perfect time to pursue our hobbies and learn new crafts to enhance our skillets. While binge-watching our favorite series comes to our mind first, it’s perhaps more useful to view these free time for self-improvement. Here are a few ways through which you can engage yourself in this lockdown phase.
1. Working out
In these times of social distancing, working out independently is the best thing that can do to improve your health and stay fit. Though you may miss the equipment in the gym or the sprawling space of a park near hour house, the tiny space in your living room is good enough to exercise.
Be it some basic stretching or simple yoga exercises or intense aerobics; they are highly efficient. Exercising releases endorphins, a feel-good hormone that keeps you happy throughout the day. For inspiration, you can check out the working out videos posted by several celebrities in their social media profiles. Also, you can possibly check for YouTube videos about the exercises that you can do from home.
2. Pursuing your hobby
It’s that time to pursue that hobby that has always brought you happiness. For some, it may be time to sharpen their culinary abilities or resuming the paintings that they have put on hold given their busy schedule. Taking time to cook may reduce your expenditure dining out going forward and would also keep you healthier.
Doing Household chores routinely in these lockdown days can also be engaging. Thanks to technology today, you can learn a lot from the comfort of homes. Perhaps, you can learn how to play a musical instrument, brush up on your photographic skills, or try to learn a new hobby from the cornucopia of hobbies that you can find on the internet. You can do anything you want – so as long as you remain indoors.
3. Learn a new language or a technology
If you are working on Information Technology, these are the best time to learn new technology. As the IT landscape is continuously evolving, it is important to stay updated. There are plenty of free materials on the latest groundbreaking technologies like machine learning available on the internet, which you can start learning. Several online learning platforms like Udemy, Coursera, Great Learning have free courses on several IT related topics.
For others, perhaps it’s a great time to learn a new language other than your mother tongue. In this era of globalization, it always helps to know an additional language than your MT. There are plenty of language-learning apps which will help you a heads-up.
4. Resume your reading habit
We always complain about not having the time to read our favorite books because of our tight schedule. One of the best ways to spend time during these lockdown days is to brush up your reading habits. Everyone has a genre that they like so much; perhaps it’s the time to dig into it deeply as you are certainly not going to get a time like this. Perhaps it might be a Sidney Sheldon’s mystery or dystopian novels that match the current crisis, reading a book always gives you intense pleasure more than any hobby. If you are not into reading much, perhaps this is the time you should invest more. Just like how food is a nourishment for the body, knowledge is the nourishment for the soul, and that’s what you need at these adverse times.
5. Play Online Card Games
The online gaming industry is estimated to touch $1.1 billion by 2021, according to a report by Google and KPMG. The number of Indian gamers is expected to be around 628 million. India is all set to become the biggest gaming market in the upcoming years. Card games have always enchanted Indians from time immemorial. The latest game that’s driving Indians crazy is online poker.
Poker relatively a new entrant in Indian card game scene has been making rapid surges in the gaming industry. Contrary to the popular perception that it’s a luck-based game, it is a game where skills play a vital role. Poker rules are quite simple and easy to master, and there is a multitude of poker sites with detailed illustrations on poker rules and how to play poker online. Now that most gamers are confined in-home and with a growing uncertainty over marquee poker events like WSOP, there’s been a spike in online poker interest. Poker mobile apps are being downloaded by more and more gamers every day. Industry experts say that the number of hours spent by players is at an all-time high.
Online poker sites such as Khelo365 have come up with fantastic promotions and offers during these lockdown times to keep the players engaged and also an opportunity to make a fortune from the comfort of their homes.
6. Blogging
Blogging can turn out to be the best way to spend time during the shutdown. It is now a popular way to express oneself in the online world. You can make free entries and also get paid for making a blog, which could be a real yield when you are sitting all day at your home. The biggest advantage of blogging is that it can evolve an individual. It builds in confidence to a person. Blogging can update a person’s language knowledge as well as the technical language. Eventually, blogging would give you experience same as writing diaries.
Conclusion
While a certain situation of uncertainly prevails, we can definitely focus on the positive aspects of staying put healthy at our homes following the curfew orders rather than getting drowned in fear and anxiety. Reinvest the time you’d otherwise spend binge-watching into some of these productive actives which will certainly help you in the long run. Any kinds of knowledge only help, it never hurts. So, make use of this free time productively.
