Recently more and more people have had to work from home. Having a work-from-home career is a blessing, but solitude can weigh you down if you don’t take care of yourself. If you work from home, do online studies, or wait for this to blow over, here are some fun indoor activities. These things will help keep your mind off it and boost mental health.
Try These 8 Indoor Activities to Boost Mental Health
These activities engage your brain by challenging you to learn new skills.
1 – Train or Adopt a Pet.
Before this season, most of us haven’t had time to train our pets as we would love them to act. Now is the time to do that. At times, I had a cat that could decide to pee and poop behind the couch (very gross, to be honest), and if I still had him, I sure as hell would train him now that I have the time.
Go online and find some basic lessons on training your dog or pet. You could also buy supplies online to help with the process. Not only will teaching your pet help you concentrate on something positive, but you will also get a chance to connect more with them.
Training your pet will also reduce your stress levels about how to handle them. You will get to understand each other more and make each other’s life easy.
If you don’t own a pet, I know you’re wondering why having one is even a necessity. During these challenging times, we have seen a spike in anxiety and stress levels. Owning a pet helps in reducing anxiety, stress, depression, and heart health.
In a study, 76 people who had recently acquired a pet (dog or cat) were against 26 people who didn’t own a pet. The study went on for ten months. Minor health problems decreased in pet owners in the first month. This effect in dog owners remained for the next ten months.
Dog owners also got more exercise done as they needed to walk their dogs. The results proved that owning a pet could significantly impact your physical and mental well-being, and sometimes it is long-term.
2 – Catch Up With Friends and Family
If you’re staying too far away from family, make it a routine to call them up and check-in to see how they are doing. It doesn’t have to be a daily routine (i know some people would find this to be tasking), maybe once a week.
Communicating with your loved ones will make you stop stressing and concentrate on those happy moments. Just make sure you’re communicating with those family members who aren’t hostile and make sure they make you feel good.
Studies show that communication with people helps in reducing stress, anxiety, and depression. Talking to our loved ones also helps with the same, only if they aren’t toxic.
If you don’t have friends or family members who are friendly, it’s high time you made friends. Join online communities for activities you enjoy doing or are a part of, and you won’t regret it (I mean, what do you have to lose?). You will feel connected and have a new set of friends with the same interests at heart.
3 – Explore Your Creative Side
Do you remember when you loved singing, dancing, painting, gardening, crafting, or any other leisure activity? I know life got in the way, but now, you have plenty of time to get back to doing these lovely things that make you feel like sunshine.
Grow those herbs in your balcony (pretty sure your Pinterest is full of those!). Make sure to explore that creative side of yourself and make it even better. You could check tutorials on youtube or take a free course on the craft you love.
When we do activities we enjoy, our brains settle down and concentrate on them. By doing this, we keep our mental health in check. According to studies, a creative activity like drawing is beneficial for our cognitive functioning.
When you grow that herb or vegetable garden, it will be beneficial to have fresh organic food in your house. Apart from you eating healthily, you’ll also get to learn new things like composting.
Whatever that activity you love is, re-learn and explore it. Who knows, you might even find yourself be at it and consider it as a career. You won’t know if you don’t try.
4 – Exercise Will Help Boost Mental Health
Remember those few pounds or kgs you needed to reduce? Now’s the time to do that. You don’t have to have a gym membership to do that. Recently, we’ve observed so many qualified trainers come up with exercise routines and videos on youtube to help out people.
Join one of those programs and make yourself proud by reducing the few pounds you’ve added during this period of staying at home. If you’re like me and all you love doing is walking back and forth from baking goodies, maybe try rewarding yourself with a cookie after working out (I know I do). On days I haven’t worked out, I feel pretty bad because I don’t get a treat or dessert.
Exercising also reduces stress hormones in your body, which makes you stop feeling overwhelmed or stressed up. We release endorphins when working out. Endorphins are the “feel good” hormones that improve mental health.
5 – Learn a New Skill or Course.
Since the onset of the virus, there have been very many online courses provided online for free. Take a class or pay for one if you can afford it. You could advance your career or learn something you’ve never had time to learn.
Youtube is also a platform with many tutorials for skills you might love. Check out some of those, learn them, and put them to practice. By the end of the month, you could find yourself with a new carpet, painting, scarf, or even be able to remodel your pantry.
6 – Declutter everything.
How long have you had those clothes and shoes that don’t fit? I’m sure it has been long enough. Declutter your closet, fix those clothes that have holes but you still treasure. Give away or donate clothes that no longer fit.
If you still are a bit queasy about donating them, you can sell them online. There are a few websites that let you sell clothes you’ve worn.
After decluttering your closet, you’ll find enough space to put your new clothes and also buy clothes. Having an entire wardrobe of clothes sometimes hinders us from buying new ones even though most clothes aren’t fitting or wearable.
- Declutter your social media platforms too. Look at the people you follow and see if you ever benefit from their content or not. Unfollow unhelpful pages and start following new ones. Create a theme for your page if possible. Download a new app and try to figure it out. You might end up loving it.
- Declutter your shelves, drawers, and medicine cabinets. Get rid of expired make-up, creams, and medicine. Rearrange them and clean the cabinets.
- Thoroughly clean your house. Remember those places you always meant to clean and never had the time to do it? Now’s the time to clean them. Make your home sparkling clean the way you’ve always wanted it.
7 – Selfcare
If you’re like most people, it means you probably go even months to a year without scrubbing your face or masking it. Now it’s time to try doing something for yourself. Do homemade masks for your hair and face.
To make this whole process a journey, find some pins (on Pinterest) about hair masks, face masks, wax, and any other interest you have and start doing them from scratch. The whole process is tiring and annoying as you will fail a couple of times, but the result will make it feel worth it.
Also, do your manicure and pedicure. You will feel better and look better, especially since going to the salon is off-limits. Polish your nails too. You can get yourself some bold colors and decorate your nails as much as you want. The whole process will help you de-stress.
8 – Meditation and Yoga
If you’re a prominent critic of meditation and or yoga, hear me out. They are the best. Yoga helps your brain slow down and concentrate on the poses you’re taking at the moment. Also, in yoga classes, whether online or physical, you are encouraged to breathe in and out.
Can you imagine doing a downward dog, breathing, and also being stressed out? (Me neither). Yoga will also help you get flexible and toned. So if you’re too lazy to do regular exercises, yoga is the way to go.
Meditation is a tool that has been in use for years. According to studies, meditation has been to show a bit of decrease in stress. Another study conducted showed that transcendental meditation helps in lowering anxiety, especially in patients with high anxiety.
Meditation also promotes emotional health by reducing depression. In a study, the results showed that people who had mediated had fewer negative thoughts than those who hadn’t. Trying any of the above would be of massive help to your mental health, hence worth trying.
Final Thoughts on Trying New Indoor Activities to Boost Your Mental Health
It is hard being indoors when you were used to the outside. But there are so many things you can do indoors and not see this as an issue. These activities will help you improve yourself while you boost your mental health.
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