LIFE & WELLBEING
Getting the Most Out of Waiting it Out One Family’s Coronavirus Quarantine Survival Tips By Kellie Henry
H
ere we are, the evening of February 2. The day that was meant to signal the firm end of the holiday, the day before my daughter was meant to return to school. Well… as we all know, that won’t be happening for at least two weeks, possibly more. For a number of reasons, we’ve elected to ride out the virus situation here in Shanghai (no judgment on anyone who has chosen to leave – we all gotta make our choices for ourselves on this). So what am I going to do with a young teenager for all this time other than let her stare at the screen in the palm of her hand? Without doubt, this is a big question parents both foreign and local are facing as we all press on day to day. Some part of each day, theoretically, will have my daughter occupied and engaged in e-learning from her school. But what to do with the rest of the time? We sat down as a family earlier today and tossed around some ideas. Here are some thoughts we have had and ideas we have come
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up with. Hopefully, if you’re in a similar boat, you’ll find something in here that inspires you to map out your own plan for the coming weeks.
We’ll keep a schedule so our days have some structure… We’ve played it pretty loose up to now: no real bedtime, no fixed time to get up, no requirement to do refined things like put on pants. (I mean, someone has to go out to walk the dog, but this is Shanghai: pajamas are totally acceptable for such local errands.) Once or twice I had to stop and think to myself, “When did I last shower – was it yesterday? Day before? What did I even do yesterday?” And you know, whatever, it was the holiday, so who cares? But it’s time to get back into some semblance of order lest we tip over entirely into incurable sloth. Tonight, we go to bed at a reasonable hour, and we get up in the morning by 8. We’re blocking out chunks time in our calendars for specific activities.
We’re going to start each day with
30 minutes of exercise… If it’s nice out, maybe a walk. Or maybe we do some yoga. On some days a little HIIT. Some Pilates. Get funky with a bit of Tabata. The point is, we gotta get ourselves moving to stay fit both mentally and physically.
