Transforming Your Home To Survive Quarantine Easier
How to adapt our living space to the new and strange times we are living.
On the 10th of March, I landed in my hometown, Bucharest, a city filled with old, communist blocks of flats. After a few days visiting the beautiful land of Cantabria in northern Spain, I was suddenly in the middle of the coronavirus crisis, advised to stay at home for at least fourteen days. In the meantime, things have rapidly changed across the globe and my country is now under strict quarantine rules. Stuck at home, in less than 50 square metres with no garden or terrace for an undetermined amount of time, I realized that my home is my new universe and that changes were needed to improve my mood, my mental state and my overall health.
Organize Your Spaces
The tendency to stay all day in your pyjamas will be great. You should not give in to that. Even if you do not wake up to go to work, you should not transform your house into one giant comfortable bed. This will only worsen your physical and mental state, making you even more inactive than you already have to be because of the situation. It will make it even harder to escape the laziness mood that will slowly try to invade your mind. Your bedroom should remain the sleeping place and you should continue to make your bed just like in any normal day when you go to work.
If you do not have a working space and now is one of the first times you are working from home, it is highly important to find the right place to do your work.
One of the most important aspects when choosing the location of your desk is the light. Make sure you find a spot with enough natural light, but that will not disturb you when working or darken your screen. Your desk should be clean and organized with all the necessary tools you need when performing your tasks. If you do not have a proper desk, you can simply use a table and move the most comfortable chair in your house to this table. Moving the furniture in the house might seem like a lot of trouble, but it will also keep you busy and make you less bored with your home.
If only a few weeks ago relaxation time offered a multitude of possibilities, today relaxation time can only come from our homes. It is true that we are incredibly lucky to be in the time of the internet. We have numerous streaming options available, as well as live theatre plays, opera shows and so many books that we finally have the time to read. There are plenty of options to spend our time, but there is another key aspect of this. If part of the fun was going to the cinema or reading in the park, now all these activities are limited to the same space.
This is why creating a relaxation space is essential for actually appreciating the moments when we engage in leisure activities.
Find the place in your home that you most enjoy and make it as comfortable as possible. Place some nice pillows, add some lights to bring a nice vibe and colour to that space.
In my case, I chose the corner in my living room with the bookshelves and the record player. After reading the titles of all the books in my library and organizing them by categories, I put them on the nice clean shelves. To offer a nicer view, I added between them the candles I had left from last Christmas after I made sure all the Santa Claus and deer figurines were removed. The same happened with my vinyl collection, where jazz, indie, rock and electro went to the right categories, with a nice string of yellowish lights between them. In front of them, I placed some huge pillows with a yellow blanket and my comfortable hygge corner was done.
Create New Routines
It is a fact that our lives have changed. And this has happened fast and with almost no preparation. There are routines that we have had for years that we need to let go from one day to another. Admitting these facts to ourselves will only make the future weeks easier. But one way to fight against the side effects of these changes is by creating new routines.
An essential aspect for our health — both physical and mental — is how active we remain during these days. As mentioned above, the tendency to stay all day in bed or on the couch is great, especially in the first few days. After a while, the need to move and be active increases, but the options we have are limited. Thinking about climbing up and down the stairs of your building as an exercise and feeling excited about it proves how limited and claustrophobic we can get inside our apartments. However, there are still many options to take care of our bodies.
Creating a new sport routine and finding the right spot for this activity will help you a lot.
You do not need to go online shopping for the latest equipment, indoor bikes and pilates mats. Depending on the type of exercise you can do, find a spot with enough light and ventilation and empty it for your sports activities. Since I chose to do pilates and yoga — also recommended for helping with stress — and I did not have any mat, I used one of the sleeping bags I had in my closet to do my exercises. It is very important that the space can be ventilated and that it is easy to clean it after you finished with your exercises.
We keep talking about the disadvantages of isolation and quarantine, but we forget that not long ago we were craving for some of the aspects of our current situation. Now, we can finally enjoy more time in the morning and we should take advantage of this extra time.
We can take long showers in the mornings or stay longer in front of our mirrors to take care of our skin. Maybe we can start having a proper breakfast and have a nicer morning with pancakes or fried eggs instead of cereal and milk. Every morning in quarantine can feel like a weekend morning if we adapt to these changes and realize the benefits of staying more at home.
Keep Your Home Sparkling Clean
Cleaning your home regularly will decrease the chances of infection with the new coronavirus. A clean house will also help you enjoy your time at home more and boost your mood.
There are simple rules you can follow to keep your house neat. First of all, you need to disinfect every item that comes from outside your home, like groceries and other online shopping packages. Secondly, you should not postpone doing the regular household chores. It will only get messier and take a longer time to clean.
Take Care of Your Plants
Plants are very important in our homes and provide numerous benefits for our health. According to Ecowatch, having plants at home is scientifically proven to help our immune system, mental health, productivity and to improve the air quality and humidity in our homes. They are incredibly helpful for our overall well-being, especially in times of quarantine.
Staying at home means more time to look after our plants. We should take advantage of this time and make sure we offer our plants the right care. The internet has numerous articles on the best home plants and advice on where to place the plants, when to water them and when to cut them. We can also buy plants according to our health needs and make sure we are offering ourselves and our environment the best solutions for quarantine time.
Your Safe Haven
In the difficult times we are living, we are confronted every day with terrifying news. Our health systems seem overwhelmed, our economic systems are crashing and the world as we know it seems to rapidly change. The future is full of uncertainties and these confusing times are increasing our level of anxiety.
However, even in the midst of this chaotic world, with cities that start resembling post-apocalyptic movies, our homes can still be our safe havens.
They are the places where we can find the strength we need these days. This is why it is important to take care of them and to reshape them according to our needs and to reshape our behaviour and habits according to our new world and environment.
Doing that will help our immunity, decrease our anxiety and give us the power we need to prepare for the uncertainties of the future and to conquer the struggles of the present.
Stay safe and comfy!
