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How to Enjoy Ourselves during confinement

Alfredo Sahagun
isolation

Traditional Indoor ways to enjoy ourselves or with our family such as puzzles, board games, and tv, but how about trying out something new during these confinement days?

For those of us who decided to keep our spirits high during the pandemic lockdown, here are many new options to test and add to our common amusement while at home. We encourage the use of face to face apps as Zoom, Whatsapp, Skype to keep social and connected. And also to find the time while at home to meditate and do projects we prefer, during these days we have all been drawn to find the best in ourselves, and to learn more, use online resources and be creative to continue growing and finding opportunities and enjoyable ways of living. But we mustn’t ever lack entertainment!

Here are some online activities you can do with friends:

Online Board Games

Yes, you might have heard of all these famous board games, but did you know you can actually play them online, either one or many players, and locally or remotely, our favorites are: Monopoly, The Game of Life, Carcassonne, Dominion, Exploding Kittens, Pandemic, 7 Wonders, Splendor, Terraforming Mars, Ticket to Ride. Here are many chances to have a nice time with new people from all over the world.

Multiplayer video games

Lockdown has been the opportunity for many of us to play some multiplayer game, whether on our phones, or tablets and to experience that social sharing, playing a game with a real person or a friend who may live near or far is as easy as logging in.

There are hundreds of video games to choose for free at the app stores, a list of the best to play multiplayer during confinement are: Don’t Starve Together, Castle Crashers, BattleBlock Theater, Pummel Party, Golf With Your Friends, SpeedRunners, Brawlhalla, UNO, Mario Kart, LudoClub, Cards Against Humanity among other.

Lockdown restrictions have made it easier to find time to try new games, but remember, too much of something is not good, gaming has been referred to as an addiction by the director of mental health for the NHS.

Netflix Party

This just in time new app allows to stream TV shows and movies with friends including a watchers’ chat room even a separate video or second voice app in the background while sharing films and shows.

It is truly great for coordinating a virtual gathering, since it synchronises the feature for everyone with a link, so if one person pauses it will pause for others as well.

Doing Cooking Tutorial and Trying something new

Dinner, kitchens have been on fire this home lockdown, from trying new recipes to preparing a fancy meal in family and online.

It is home chef time! Taking an extra time for learning something new, to take cooking as a hobby, to show off to family and social media our newly-found abilities in the kitchen can be rewarding, especially while eating the results. Bake parties have also been present during the lockdown having a shared cooking experience is easy now with video calling apps.

And there are also online cooking classes with famous chefs from all over. For those who enjoy Wine and beer tasting parties can be also done. Check out on the web events like Grape Night In, or BeerBods club which host live tastings on social media every week.

Reading

Reading a good Novel or Book, hosting a Book club, assisting a Book club online, and or listening to an Audio club. There are many book clubs you can join, the most difficult is choosing which you all want to read.

Working out

Now that the deconfinement started is an excellent time to exercise outdoors. Having a routine for indoors exercise is the healthiest action you can do to keep you motivated during the rest of the day and to provide you with a good night sleep, both exercise and good sleep have been absent in many of our homes still, but its benefits cannot be denied. Why not keep motivated by exercising some at home and out with a friend after deconfinement?

Having a workout buddy is a great way to keep up a constant program and video calling makes it possible to hold a multiple people yoga lesson from the safety of our homes.

Zoom parties and Karaoke parties

The new Social Sharing Video Calling king has become the Zoom app, its market value already proves so. So why not try to mix a Zoom party with some Karaoke, though bars are still closed that should not stop you from improving your karaoke skills. And sharing it through Zoom is a guaranteed good laugh.

It may need some technical know-how to toggle between the video chat and the karaoke versions of songs on YouTube, but once used to it you will enjoy it a lot. People have actually held PowerPoint parties online, with topics like Netflix’s Tiger King or Why Harry Styles is actually Mexican?.

Crafting Arts

Challenge yourself to something outside of your comfort zone. A new craft is always useful. DIY Tutorials on objects and crafts are endless on the internet. Choose a favorite art work and crafting tutorial from youtube and get many thousands of objects to imitate and customize. Also, challenging a friend to get inspired to have a DIY project from and for objects around the house is a good idea. A favorite social art challenge during this confinement has been the Getty Museum challenge, in which people recreate famous artwork dressing up and using household items.

Catch up on new films, shows or documentaries

We have dedicated a whole blog entry to what to watch during confinement. With such a diverse variety of streaming services, ranging from Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Disney+, Hulu, among many others your options are too many, and sometimes the most difficult is to choose what to watch.

Write a novel, blog and or dairy

It is key to understand now Is time to create rather than to consume? Besides, keeping a journal has always been one of the most powerful mental health tools there is.

This is your chance to use that extra time you were looking for. Some have always wanted to write a novel, a book or script, others can digitize family pictures and important documents.

If you want inspiration, read books like Love is the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez can be great motivators and remember Shakespeare wrote King Lear in isolation during the plagueSir Isaac Newton had what came to be called his year of wonder while in isolation he experimented with prisms, advancement in mathematics and Laws of motion and universal gravitation. If you’re not really sure where to start, there are tons of free courses on how to start writing fiction to get you going.

Tour the World from Google Earth and Google Street view

Tour ancient cities, and world heritage sites, it is incredibly fun once you know what you want to research and have a virtual tour off. Even there are many indoor virtual tours of museums and galleries which you can visit at the moment. Though we may feel cut off from the rest of the world, we can still travel and plan ourselves enjoying all these resources. Currently technology offers inimaginable ways to explore the world.

Something that you can do from home and not outside of it, is virtual time travel, you can actually take a tour of many of the cities’ ancient buildings or way of life. In the virtual tour of ancient Rome you will visit the forum, capitoline hill, and the main monuments of the time.

Tour Museums from all over the World

A large number of museums and art galleries from all around the world digitized their collections and are now offering free virtual tours. All these are still open to virtual visitors.

Visit the MoMA, New York’s MoMA is just one of the incredible galleries that you can visit from your own sofa, where you can enjoy Pollock and Monet without the crowds. The Uffizi gallery, in Florence, one of the best collections of Renaissance art in the world, including Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Caravaggio’s Medusa, and Titian’s Venus of Urbino. The Musée d’Orsay, the Paris’ Musée holds the best collection of Van Gogh and Cezanne’s art. The Tate, British modern art at its best, including their famous Klee, Picasso, Dali and others.

Although you’ll miss out on the lovely river walk to the gallery, you can drop in at any time and see your favourite pieces from the comfort of your own home.

And Google’s arts and culture collection has virtual tours of 500 top attractions around the world, including the Eiffel Tower.

Painting, Hand-Crafting, Redecorating or Feng Shui

Any productive craft or work within the house will pay off, in self accomplishment and neater spaces to go back to. From moving furniture around, to cleaning a seldom cleaned curtain or carpet, working in your home improvements is time well spent. Otherwise, just for the sake of entertainment you may do a puzzle, or color a mandala, or watch any DIY 5 minutes craft tutorials online to get your ideas flowing.

List of other activities and resources:

Tidy up, it is not everyone’s choice, but it is a feelgood factor it will give you a sense of achievement.

Do some gardening.If you have a garden or maybe consider getting yourself an indoor plant.

Try out a new instrument, or sing along your favorite songs, and maybe even get out your old instrument, even if it is a bit dusty.

Play a card or board game with your family.

Go for a walk following the advised government guidelines

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