We’re all stranded at home while this coronavirus quarantine is in place, and things will probably stay this way for a while, so here are 10 ways to thrive in this situation and make the most out of the quarantine!

Every health expert agrees that in this moment, the health status is esential to diminish the coronavirus’ potential effects and symptoms. And health, according to Dr. Peter Attia, can be categorized into four pillars:

Sleep, Nutrition, Physical Activity and Stress Management.

So, most importantly, during the quarantine these are the aspects to be taken care of.

Start with sleep:

Master sleep

Sleep quality is the game changer when it comes to health and body function regulations. It’s the one thing that affects all other activities, hormones, mood, willpower, body and mental health in general. So, taking care of it first is key:

Have enough quantity sleep: 7-9 hours (for the average adult)

Improve quality sleep

Isolation means a lot less sunlight. And guess what, we have skin receptor for sunlight, that interfere directly with the circadian rythm! So, not only it’s important to have as much sunlight time as you can to your general health, but also for sleep regulation.

If you can’t afford enough sunlight exposure, consider talking to your doctor for a Vitamin D prescription.

Morning Routines

Morning Routines are important to engage the body and the mind for the rest of the day, and as a bonus, they can take care of some aspects of your day already, like physical activity and stress management, which are also great for immunology.

Keep consistent at sleep, and the next step is to establish a morning routine that fits you well.

Some examples of activities I do every morning that kickstart my day:

Make the bed

Stretch

Workout (I do this)

Take a cold shower

Meditation

Journalling

The order is up to you, this is just what has worked best for me personally.

For more details on my morning routine, check the science behind my morning routine.

HIIT Workouts

As we are all stranded at home, a nice and healthy alternative to the gym is High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), which consists in full physical effort for a small period of time followed by a period of rest. This is proven to have the same or better benefits of regular moderate cardio exercises, but also increases muscle gains in the process.

Another good reason for doing HIITs right now is that they are very compact in duration (7 minutes a day, for example), so they fit well anytime.

Physical activity improves immunity, so it’s quite crucial to keep consitent at it while we’re in this pandemic lockdown situation, succeptible to infection.

Another major player on the immunologic system is the gut:

Eat for your Gut

There is good reason as to why the human gut is called the second brain: It’s the organ that has the most nervous cells after the brain. What does that tell us about nutrition?

Like sleep, it plays an important role on bearly every body function.

For starters, it’s the center of the immune system. What separates the food inside the gut from our body is a membrane made of single cells. So, there’s good reason to pay attention to what is heading down there.

The immune system is directly affected by gut health. And while succeptible to infection, you really want your immunity as capable and available as possible.



Right now, it doesn’t make that much difference wether it’s keto, organic, or from the hymalayas. Better nutrition generally means more fruits and vegetables (and more water). Liver is also extremely nutritious and cheap.

Avoid inflammatory foods (like wheat and sugar), not only you’ll feel better, but that’s a good strategy against the coronavirus.

After I finish my morning routine it’s time for breakfast. And man, I make it as nutritionally fancy as I can.

Using the spare time to cook can be quite therapeutic as well, get creative with the healthy meals you enjoy the most!

Learn a New Skill/Language

Chances are that you have a lot more time right now, given the quarantine circumstances, and one of the best ways to investing your time is to learn something new. Develop a new skill that might bring you a return on your investment on the future. It might be a skill for a job if you don’t have one already.

If you have a job, learn that new language you never had the time to learn, that can get you that opportunity. If you don’t have one, learn a new language to add it to your resume and increase your chances of getting hired. Learning a new language also stimulates the brain to think about the world differently and create new neuropathways, it’s a good thing in and of itslef.

Pick a language and look for freely available resources!

Learn something you’ve always wanted but didn’t have time to, and it might bring you some benefits when life comes back to normal.

After deciding what you’ll learn, look for available online courses on your subject of interest, and chances are that somewhere they are freely available, once a lot of online platforms are viabilizing their cources freely until the end of may.

Start here: learn how to learn.

Learn Meditation

It’s one of the best tools for stress management, and personally, one of the best moments of my day. Meditation is not only a skill, but also a ‘brain muscle’ that you can train. It’s benefits have been widely proven scientifically, to increase focus, physical increase in certain parts of the brain, general wellbeing, etc.

It’s really simple, but you have to keep consistent at it to reap more tangible benefits.

I have a quick guide here.

I incorporate meditation in my morning routine because it’s easier for me to meditate in the mornings due to less mental ‘noise’, but you can do it any time in the day. Some people argue it’s done best after workouts and before breakfast.

Headspace has great content on meditation, and just made their content freely available as well!

Create

You know those projects that we’ve always wanted to do but never got the time? There are no excuses now, just get at it! It’s a great way to keep motivated and mentally engaged while in this uncertainty scenario.

Develop an entrepreneurial mindset, and start doing the hard work first. Now is the time, guess what: if you wait for the perfect conditions it’s never going to happen!

Be confident and work on it, today there are several ways to share what you’re doing with the ones that will connect with it!

The moment is now. Even try doing something for yourself only, like a painting, music, cooking, etc. These ativities are great for stress management as well.

Connect

Relationships are also a big player in stress management, emotional health, mental wellbeing etc. If you are in total isolation, meditation can help with the natural anxiety, but also reach for as much virtual engagement as you can, reach friends and familly via video calls preferably on a daily basis.

The human brain is wired to stay connected to others, it really helps coping with the emotional aspect.

Also look for connections to like-minded people on the internet, get into groups of your interests, hobbies and mindset.

Look for accountability partners that hold you responsible for certain challenges and habits you want to develop!

We have a community that is all about sharing science/health/personal development knowledge on discord and reddit. Feel free to join us!

Start Journaling

Journaling is an excellent habit, not only for planning every aspect of each day, life goals etc, but also as a form of therapy. By writing thoughts down, you end the loop of thoughts in your head, and also get to actually see the things that you’re thinking about.

There is something unique to that process that helps a lot with anxiety, bad thoughts and self talk.

By writing thought down, you no longer have to store them in your short term memory, which frees a lot of brain ‘hardware’ space.

I journal at night, after a shower, to write down some shower thoughts and to plan the following day.

Use journaling to reduce bad habits, and replacing with healthy ones. Don’t set impossible goals, start small and keep consistent. Note down your achievements and share them with others!

When you plan your day up ahead, you take away a lot of the decision making you would have to make during the day, you just have to follow a script. That alone helps me beat procrastination in a way no other method has done before.

Andrew Kirby has a great perspective on that, check him out!

Have more fun

The quarantine is probably not ending soon, and while we wait, nothing better than enjoy ourselves!

If you’re with others, create more memorable moments together. If you’re alone, write down everyday some of the things that you are excited to do during the day that you’d really like to do. Separate time to enjoy yourself alone: dance, workout, destress, wind down, watch a movie, listen to great music, whatever gets you feeling good and it’s even better if it includes movement.

Avoid procrastination. Think: Work Hard/Play Hard. That receipt spares you of resentment at the end of the day.

One of the best ways to cope with what is going on right now is to enjoy the things that are really meaningful to us.

We have a lot of time in our hands right now, so it’s important to learn how to handle it properly. But have a look at it as a challenge, focus on progress instead of results and reward/judge yourself based on your progress. And when it’s all over, hopefully, we will learn something with the experience.

Stay safe!

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