Stuck Indoors? Here’s How to Beat Cabin Fever
As most of the world join the American's watching and waiting for the latest updates from the CDC on the coronavirus outbreak and more employers institute telecommuting, many people are making the socially responsible choice to stay home until the worst is over. While that may sound like a terrifying prospect for some, Grow offers tips anyone can use to make the most of the situation.
To avoid everyone just grabbing their phone or binge-watching Netflix or YouTube, connect as a family around activities. Although parents are most likely trying to get work done, keeping kids engaged with some school work and games is essential to keeping them out of each others hair.
Watching TV or playing on a phone requires less of the mind and more of the heart, so activities that encourage creativity and deep-rooted reflection will do the trick!
Grow has a few ideas to keep your mind busy and distracted from all that is going on around your home.
Journal your experience
Write about your frustration. Why do you want to go out, and why don’t you want to stay in? Write about your observations. What new things do you see in your home? What new behaviors do you see in others? Look out the window and write how you see the world from your current perspective — the good and the ugly. Break out of the confines of the routine you had before and expand into a bigger world by using your cloister.
Listen to music
Listen not for the sake of filling the air with distracting sound, but to let your spirit out. Here’s your chance. Don’t limit yourself with a foot-tap. Set yourself free! Move about your home, dance into all four corners of the room, let your spirit express itself through your body, and let your body express itself throughout your entire space! If you are with family, hold a dance contest or an old-fashioned sock-hop. Consider the joy Tom Cruise in “Risky Business” made for himself and millions more through expressive dance. That’s the power of freedom of expression through music and play! Dance until hair is mussed and cheeks are flushed and don’t forget to use household items as musical props.
Play and create.
Play is the purest form of love because it fosters an appreciation for people as they really are. The more playful things get, the more real you are! Use a coloring book to relax into your creative flow or play a board game and use your outdoor voice indoors. Create imaginative characters and use each other’s wardrobe to piece together costumes. Take turns reading to each other with dramatic flair, or pick written questions from a bowl. Imagine how, if you had superpowers, you would solve big problems. Play hard to think big and be bigger.
Take any image or a photograph and use your imagination to travel into it. Create a world, hear its sounds and interact with amazing characters. Imaginovate yourself into a wondrous, caring, and playful dimension. A new reality is just a thought away, so experiment with fantastically better experiences. This process will improve your perspective, provide entertainment, and blow out the walls of your cloister.
I have often wondered about previous generations as we studied in history what it was like to live through a dark time. We are getting to experience it ourselves now, so let's make the best of it!
