Stay Sane While Living Separately

How are you doing? If you’re anything like me, you have probably been finding yourself playing on your phone or scrolling through social media A LOT more often than usual. As we’re all adapting our everyday schedule to working from home — or in a lot of cases, not working at all 🙁 — avoiding non-essential errands and canceling social engagements, we’re craving the lost connections with one another and ways to stay sane while living separately. 

While a 24/7 feed of Coronavirus news can stress you out and do a number on your mental and physical health, that doesn’t mean you have to avoid the Internet altogether.

In fact, there are TONS of amazing ways to help you stay sane right now, from free on-line exercise classes to virtual tours of landmarks and museums to concerts. 

The party isn’t over, it’s just moved online!

Here are a few of my favorite online resources to help you stay sane while living separately.  

Find Your Peak

Outlander star Sam Heughan knows a thing or two about being in peak condition. Now he has created an online program to help educate people to live healthier, more balanced lives, called My Peak Challenge. Using a daily training program and the power of community, members get in shape while also raising money for charity. 

If you’d like to test out some of the exercises, My Peak Challenge is hosting a 30-Day Social-Distancing Challenge with “accessible and easy” daily exercises and yoga sessions, ranging from 10 – 30 minutes, to help you maintain a positive outlook while getting in some movement each day. 

Join the Challenge here. Today is only Day 7, and all the previous days are available at the link!

Get Bendy With It

Now is a great time to give yoga a try (or get back to the mat). Stress relief is more important than ever, and since you’re probably doing a lot of sitting at home right now, your muscles could do with some serious stretching. Adriene Mishler’s popular Yoga With Adriene has everything you need – seriously! Her YouTube channel is filled to the brim with playlists of all levels and lengths. Pulled a neck muscle? There’s a playlist. Only have 10 minutes? There’s a playlist. Want to open one of your chakras? There’s a playlist (and my timely article on how your Root Chakra is connected to your sense of security). 

The best part is that Adriene curates a new program each month around a theme and creates free and membership-based yoga routines. March’s theme is Create, and you can download the calendar here to get a taste of what her membership club looks like, which includes bonuses like interviews with artists and yogis.  

Get Centered

Chris Hemsworth probably doesn’t need an introduction, right? 😉 His new exercise and meal planning program CENTR is offering free trials right now. You can learn to train like a superhero from home through a wide variety of 20 to 40 minutes classes, like HIIT, boxing, yoga, strength training, MMA & more. You can check out their meal plans and recipes from Hemsworth’s own personal trainer Luke Zocchi. Plus, there is a mindfulness component to the site which includes sleep visualizations and expert tips to stress less, stay sane, and keep you motivated to not wear your PJs all day!

Get the details and start your trial here. 

Smartphone Savvy #1: @womenshealthmag on Instagram

Women’s Health Magazine is offering twice-daily “sweat sessions” that require little to no equipment to participate from home. Classes are 15-30 minutes each and include full body workouts, HIIT sessions and arm, legs and core exercises. Participate LIVE or catch the replay within 24 hours on their Story, so you can fit some much-needed exercise into your schedule while you scroll. 

The Spirit In The Story

When television journalist Dan Harris experienced a panic attack during a LIVE national broadcast in 2004, it forced him to reexamine how he was balancing his health and career. He took up meditation and wrote the bestselling book, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Really Works – a True Story. 

10% Happier is now a mindfulness organization with a podcast, a meditation app and, right now, a free live guided meditation and “virtual break from social distancing”. You can follow along with world-renowned teachers on YouTube at 3PM ET every weekday and view previous episodes on their website here. 

Be sure to also check out the free Coronavirus Sanity Guide, which includes “practical, actionable ways of coping with stress, fear, and anxiety” through multiple mediums.  

Be a Smarty Pants

You don’t need a fortune to get an Ivy league education anymore. Yale is offering up their most popular class online for free right now! You can audit “The Science of Well-Being” through Coursera with professor Laurie Santos, PhD, and learn her techniques to boost your mental health and stay in the moment during this time of constant distraction and worry. 

Smartphone Savvy #2: @thebigquiet on Instagram

The Big Quiet organizes Insta-worthy public moments of peace and connection around the globe. They just finished holding mass meditations in arenas throughout the U.S. as part of Oprah’s WW 2020 Vision Tour, and now you can join their movement from your living room. Each week, they are hosting LIVE group meditations, sound baths, speakers and performances to help you nurture meaningful connections during this strange time. 

Culture Queen

Art can have a profound effect on our mood, but when you’re stuck at home, it can be less than inspirational staring at the same four walls. The good news is that now you can digitally tour 12 of the world’s most famous museums and get possibly an even closer look at their exhibition pieces than you would ever in person. We’re talking the Guggenheim Museum in NYC, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and the MASP in São Paulo, Brazil. 

Check out the full list here, as well as 2500 smaller galleries and museums on Google Arts & Culture. 

Ready for a Good Read?

The library may be off-limits, but that doesn’t mean learning is taking a hiatus. If your preferred method of relaxation is curling up with a good book, OverDrive allows you to check out thousands of digital books, magazines and audiobooks for free through your public library or school. While it may not be as sleek as the latest Netflix original, reading is definitely sexy! It keeps your mind sharp and provides a great tech-free way to escape for a few hours.  

Find your next page-turner here. 

Smartphone Savvy #3: @dnice on Instagram

You know I love a good dance party! Shakin’ your booty is a great way to get exercise and to boost your mood. And in the privacy of your own home, you can try to learn those TikTok dance routines without any embarrassment. 

DJ D-Nice has been turning (pun intended) every day into a throwback holiday with his Homeschool Dance Parties. What started as a 9-hour set from his home “in part to ease his loneliness and boredom given his own gigs had dried up” has now become a celebrity-studded staple during this time of social distancing. #ClubQuarantine even teamed up with Former First Lady Michelle Obama last night to provide tunes for a 3-hour voter registration drive for When We All Vote.  

Check his Instagram for future dates, catch the replays in his Story, and check out his Homeschool playlist on Spotify. Crank up those tunes and shake off that self-isolation stress! 

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These are just the tip of the iceberg; there are so many fun and FREE on-line activities available right now to help all of us stay sane while we’re confined to our homes. 

What options have you seen that need to be on this list? Share your favorites in the comments below, and we’ll post a new list in our Badass Beauty Club on Facebook next week!

LOVE + at-home health!