Quarantine can be emotionally challenging.NMAMI AGarwal shares tips that can help beat the blues by taking extra care of overall health
No or fewer outings during the quarantine might lead to stress, anxiety, low mood, and irritability and affect our overall health and well being. Watching the same news every hour and scrolling the social media too much can make us feel depressed, exhausted and tired. Sure, quarantine can be emotionally challenging but more than ever taking care of ourselves physically, mentally and emotionally should be at the forefront of our minds. Here are some easy ways that can help promote good health while staying at home.
To boost physical health:
Follow a healthy and balanced diet: There is nothing better than consuming a healthy and well-balanced diet to achieve virtuous health. A diet filled with nutrients helps in maintaining your weight while lowering down the risk of various diseases. You can add fresh and seasonal fruits and green leafy vegetables in your diet and stay on the track of overall health. Also, one thing we can do to stay hale and hearty, is follow a healthy diet regime with regular meals. But, due to irregular sleeping patterns these days, many of us tend to skip breakfast sometimes. But make sure to start your day with a healthy and nutritious breakfast that provides essential nutrients to stay focused and energised throughout the day. Include a power packed home cooked breakfast such as idli, upma, paratha, poha in your daily diet.
A very important aspect of diet to take control is mid-day snacking, which mostly goes wrong for most of us. Why not replace your unhealthy snacks with healthier options like roasted chana, roasted makhana, salads, seeds or nuts. If you aren't much into preparation or hooked to your laptop for work, stick to a handful of nuts. A handful of walnuts equivalent to 28 grams especially can do wonders for your health.
Build a home-based exercise routine: A regular home workout cannot only help you in maintaining your weight but also fill you up with positivity and great energy levels. 30-45 minutes of a workout session can do wonders for your stress levels while improving your overall health and well-being. Use your stairs and balcony and add in squats, lunges, pilates, yoga, and aerobics in your workout.
To boost mental health:
Meditation: There is nothing great than adding a session of meditation in your lifestyle to calm down your mind and to eradicate those negative vibes. Research suggests meditation can easily combat stress levels and lower down the symptoms of depression and anxiety while giving a great boost to memory. You can do breathing exercises, breath counting, and positive visualisation for about 30-45 minutes.
Sound sleep can do wonders: A night of sound sleep can give a great boost to your mental health like nothing else. Sleep deprivation cannot only make a person dull and absent-minded but it also takes a person closer to various health problems like heart diseases, diabetes, and obesity. Regular sleep of eight hours is a pre-requisite for a healthy body and mind.
The writer is Nutritionist & Founder-CEO, NmamiLife