COVID-19 has caused many people sadness and stress. While students, professors, and many others are saddened to see the semester, sports seasons, and spring events end so soon, attending and working at a college who puts the health and safety of their staff, students, and faculty is a true blessing amongst this chaotic pandemic.

Here is a list of things that I have been doing while at home and practicing social distancing that can help you:

1. Play Board Games

Classics such as Scrabble, Life and Monopoly are all fun games that the whole family can enjoy while stuck together in the house. Monopoly is my favorite game to play while spending time with family and everyone enjoys it.

2. Go for a walk to enjoy the outdoors

Although you should stay home as much as possible, staying inside for too long can be draining. Take advantage of the bright, warm, sunny days of spring by enjoying the outdoors. Go outside for a walk, while still keeping your distance from others, of course. Scientific studies have proven that being outdoors can boost energy, mood, and immune system. I personally like going for long walks alone. Before the pandemic I would go for a walk twice or three times a week and now I go for longer walks and it really helps during this time.

3. Have a Self-Care Day

Life keeps us all pretty busy, and finding the time to dedicate an entire day to take care of ourselves can be challenging. However, now there is more than enough time on our hands lately. Pass your extra time by treating yourself to a self-care day. Take a hot bath, put on a facemask, take a nap, do yoga, listen to music, and just spend the day doing what makes you happy. I recently started doing yoga during the morning and I enjoy listening to music throughout the day.

4. Learn to Draw or Paint

Drawing and painting have amazing mental and physical health benefits. You can find many tutorials online if you want extra guidance and inspiration. I am not that good at drawing, or art in general but I have been concentrating more on drawing with all the extra time and I am starting to get better at it. It is fun and time consuming as well. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMEBSQJYaAY

5. Learn how to cook

This is a great time to learn how to cook meals you always wished you had time to learn. I personally never cook, but ever since I have been home, I have been cooking a lot and I am still learning to cook more meals that I never tried. You can start by watching youtube videos on how to cook or having someone in your family help you out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJy1ajvMU1k 

6. Staying socially active

Whether you are living with friends, family, or by yourself, it is so important to keep in touch with people to avoid loneliness. At first I found it difficult to be away from my friends, and from my coworkers and spending time going out, but I try my best to call them or text them throughout the day, and with my family around it has not been that hard for me. If you are in quarantine by yourself stay in touch with people during this difficult time.

7. Watch a movie

There are many options for movies and shows to watch during this time and each person has their own interests on what they choose to watch. There are apps like Netflix, Vudu, Tubi Tv that offer movies to watch for free!

Neflix still Rates- 

Netflix has an extremely broad catalog of video content, but it changes all the time. Shows available one day may be gone the next. It’s difficult to state authoritaviewerstively what is in Netflix’s catalog at any given moment, but that’s all part of the fun. Innumerable third-party websites, including PCMag, offer articles with titles like Everything Coming to Netflix This Month (as well as Everything Leaving Netflix), so that’s one way to stay in the know. 

Note that Netflix will lose many of its most-watched shows in the near future, including The Office (to NBC’s Peacock), Friends (to HBO Max), and several Marvel movies (to Disney+). This is potentially precarious new ground for Netflix, since it will need to rely more heavily on its original content in the coming years. In fact, the change is already happening. As it increases original content offerings, the total size of Netflix’s library is decreasing.

The TV shows available on Netflix are season-complete, which isn’t always the case for other apps. Hulu sometimes only has the most recent handful of episodes of a show, making it impossible to catch up if viewers fall too far behind. 

On the other hand, Netflix only adds shows a season at a time. Hulu offers at least some of its shows within a day or two of broadcast, so you can at least be within striking distance of the cultural zeitgeist if you’re a cable-cutter.

Netflix presents all of its content ad-free, with the exception of its previews of in-house content across its apps. Viewers can thankfully disable those previews now.

Viewers can also use it on the phone. I had no issues installing or logging in to Netflix’s Android app on the iOS variant on an iPhone 8 running iOS 11. The app looks and performs fine and closely resembles the web interface.