3 Simple Ways To Boost Your Physical Wellbeing While At Home
Here 3 ways to keep yourself in check.
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, you might have been well on your way to improving your physical health in whatever shape or form that may be to you. Now that we are firmly in the midst of it, and so many of us are in lockdown within our homes, it might be easy to neglect our physical wellbeing. Anxiety and stress may be forcing you to engage in emotional eating, while general boredom may be leading to excessive snacking. Furthermore, you cannot let your mood and body suffer from this anxiety. It's probably best to seek dieting advice to force your body to follow a consistent diet and a healthy lifestyle even when you're at home most of the time.
Whichever the case, it’s more important now than ever before to take care of our physical health. It’s not just about maintaining your figure while stuck at home, it’s also largely also about learning to manage stress levels, building a physical and mental stronghold, as well as finding healthy ways to face these new challenges in our current climate.
Here are 3 simple ways to boost your physical wellbeing while at home:
#1 Practice Mindful Eating
Being aware of your eating habits while bored and under stress is a good way to combat mindless snacking. We get it, following a healthy diet and cooking from scratch is a tough task on any given day of the week, let alone during a pandemic. But you don’t need to be all fancy-schmancy to get the most out of your diet.
Look at what foods you have stored away in your pantry and work around them. Use up what you have and create in bulk (if you can) so that you have leftovers for the next day or two. This not only cuts down on cooking time but also means that you’ll avoid eating outside of your diet because you already have prepared food ready to be heated and plated up.
Try to also eat a balanced, variety of foods. Make sure to include complex carbs, healthy fats and good protein sources in all of your mealtimes.
For example, breakfast may look like a bowl of porridge topped with fruits and nuts to keep you satiated till lunchtime. Lunchtime may look like a bowl of tinned bean soup with a cheese toast using wholemeal bread, or a quick tuna or boiled egg salad to use up some fresh produce in your fridge. To round off the day, dinner could include a tomato chicken or tofu pasta dish, or some brown rice, grilled fish and veggies. Snacking might include some fruits high in antioxidants or yogurt high in good bacteria and live cultures. These are simple meals that you can easily whip up, have decent shelf lives, and are relatively cheap to replenish.
If you’re really into watching what you eat while at home, you could always download calorie-tracking apps like MyFitnessPal and LifeSum. Both apps are free to download and use but the premium versions offer percentage breakdowns of your carbohydrate, fat and protein intake for each day. This way, you can specifically log and keep an eye on your eating habits throughout this pandemic.
#2 Move A Little
Keeping yourself fit and healthy during a pandemic that sees gyms and the outside space largely cut off can be tricky for some people. You might have adjusted to a particular fitness regime that right now cannot be implemented in the way that you’re used to. However, pumping weights and jogging several times around the block isn’t the only way to getting some quality exercise in for the day.
Home workouts are all the rave nowadays and with all of us glued to our internet at home, why not use that privilege to work out to some YouTube fitness accounts that offer videos that require little to no equipment? All you need is some space, breathable workout clothes, some motivation and you’re good to go.
If it's yoga you prefer, there are also plenty of qualified yoga instructors on YouTube worth checking out. You don’t always need to book yourself a class in a fancy yoga studio just to get a quality session in. There are tons of free content online that you can follow that focus just as much on technique and flexibility as any normal physical class would do.
Whatever kind of physical activity you enjoy, the point is there are plenty of opportunities online for you to get a good sweat in while at home. Keep an open mind and you might be surprised at how much of a burn you get by the end of a home workout.
#3 Meditate
Practicing mindfulness will lead you to practice healthier habits throughout the day that will inevitably seep into your physical and mental state in a positive way.
With apps such as Calm and Headspace readily available for download, you could have meditation practices promoting mindfulness at the tip of your fingers if you wanted. You can choose what kind of content you’d like to meditate to, whether it's content designed to calm your anxiety or content to learn gratitude. You can follow lessons that last for 5, 10, 20, or 30 minutes depending on your needs, while also improving breathing techniques to develop coping mechanisms during these troubling times.
By incorporating mindfulness and meditation in your life, you will naturally develop an awareness of yourself and your life, giving you a clearer state of mind and a healthier stance on your overall wellbeing. You’ll be better equipped in tackling any mental health issues that you are facing right now, while also be inclined to take better care of your body and physical health in general.
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