Self-quarantine: Stay physically active
Remaining physically active contributes to both our physical and mental health. Use the following tips on how to integrate movement into daily routines.
Staying at home for extended periods is a big challenge itself. And remaining physically active is another one, even greater one. Inactive behaviour can result in bad health and worse welfare. Self-quarantine might produce more stress to our mental health. That’s why physical exercises are useful and helpful tools to protect our wellbeing during this time.
If we check the WHO (World Health Organization) website, they recommend 150 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity per week, or a combination of both. So let’s have a look at some tips on how to stay physically active, support healthy immune function and boost our mood while being quarantined at home.
Take short physically active breaks during the day
These breaks might involve different things. First, simply stand up. Ideally, every 30 minutes, but at least every hour. Second, just dance. Put on your favourite music and take a dance break. Third, walk, even in small spaces. For instance, if you are on the phone, walk around while you speak, instead of sitting down.
Take regular online exercise classes
For everyone who used to say that they didn’t have enough time to take on sport, now is the perfect time to build daily exercise into our schedule. There are dozens of them. YouTube is loaded with a great variety of free workouts for all fitness levels and preferences. This is obvious that it is much easier just to curl up yourself with a good book or binge-watch Netflix. But we need to take control of our health. And do not allow these current drastic limitations in our daily activities suppress our immune system.
Clean your home
Doing regular cleaning in our apartments or houses is another way of staying active during harsh times connected with pandemic. We do not even realize what variety of muscle groups it can embrace. And to make it more effective experts recommend trying to tighten our abdominal muscles and squeeze our buns throughout the cleaning process. There is even a statistic that a 70-kg person can burn 85 calories per hour through light cleaning. And if we do it more energetically, the result is 102 calories in 30 minutes. Therefore, cleaning may become a really motivational activity.