Quarantine Day 37-43: Is Quarantine Making Me Better?

It’s been a pretty good week! A few Corona Journal entries ago, I mentioned that I was really starting to struggle with my anxiety and maybe even a little depression. Given the current circumstances the only way I figured to really deal with this was to just stay busy, stay distracted and keep moving. When I wrote about that I also pointed out that possibly wasn’t the best solution, but it was all I had and time would tell. Well it’s been a few weeks now and I’m starting to feel so much better. I’m even starting to think that quarantine may be starting to make me a better human…in some ways.

I’ve spent a lot of my self quarantine time working out. Part of that has been my hula hoop 30 day challenge, but I’ve also been working out daily. When quarantine started I sat down and created for myself four different workout routines, upper, lower, abs and full body. Besides playing soccer as a kid and taking some dance classes, I have no actual workout/athletic/nutritional knowledge, I just sort of know the basics, read a little online and know that it is important to move and sweat and get your heart rate up.

In the past it has been so hard for me to work out regularly, even when I had a gym membership. I’m one of those people that would much rather do something to workout rather than do a bunch a sets and reps. I prefer hiking or swimming or hula hooping, but thanks to quarantine my options have been limited. With that in mind I created workouts to the best of my ability that consisted of workout moves I don’t hate and that target the different muscle group/areas that I think you’re supposed to. The result was daily workouts varying from 25 minutes to 45 minutes and I actually enjoy doing them.

Not only do I enjoy doing them, I’ve stuck with it long enough that I actually feel the need to workout. I don’t try to find excuses not to do it anymore. I even found myself thinking, “How do I keep this up when I go back to work?”

I haven’t seen the results in my body or on the scale that I would have liked to, but I’m starting to feel the change. I’ve slowly been able to increase the weights in my workouts and my body is starting to feel better again.

Next step is cardio. That is going to be a long slow process, I HATE running, but I did go for my first run today and I hope to slowly increase that as well.

Besides becoming a better active person, this quarantine has also given me a chance to tap back into my inner hippie. Because this is a Corona Journal Entry, I’m not going to go too into detail, (I have a full blog post in mind related to this), but I will say it has made me more aware of the products I’m consuming, the products I’m putting on and in my body, and my overall global footprint. I’m not ready to make any HUGE lifestyle changes and there is a good chance I might not ever, but this time to reflect has given me the opportunity to start seeing the little things here and there I can change that over time do matter.

Cover Image by ArtCoreStudios from Pixabay