3 Healthy Moves You Can Make to Look and Feel Better During a Pandemic by Cheryl Conklin

Staying healthy and happy during a pandemic may sound like an oxymoron. The fact is, however, taking care of your mind and body is even more important during times of crisis. You have to actively fight to keep, preserve and protect your mental health and physical well-being, and DoItForShelby wants you to succeed. These simple tips can make things easier:

Make Healthy Food Choices

We tend to think that our emotions impact our food choices. For example, when you feel stressed you may crave certain comfort foods like pasta and chips. While treating yourself to these foods can help you feel calm for a bit, consuming too many carbs and processed snacks can actually leave you feeling even more stressed and even depressed. That’s because in reality, what we eat has a huge affect on our emotions.

So if you are feeling down and out during the pandemic, Foodies Today points out that choosing certain snacks could help balance those feelings and boost your mood. Avocados, bananas, turkey breast and yogurt are all healthy food choices that have been shown to fight off feelings of depression.

If you’re venturing out into public, you can always pick up these fresh foods from a local grocery store but what if you’d prefer to stay at home? Well, you can still get the healthy groceries and household essentials you need by shopping with retailers offering pickup and delivery.

Make Time for Regular Exercise

Whether you are dealing with gym closures or local restrictions, the pandemic has made it more difficult to stay active. Taking a small break from exercise isn’t going to have any serious impacts on your health and well-being, but Eat This, Not That! notes a lack of activity over prolonged periods of time can have some devastating consequences. You could end up with heart disease, high blood pressure or cancer, and you are likely to start feeling more depressed.

That’s why finding ways to stay fit despite pandemic limitations is so critical. If you want to stay closer to home, you could look for online workouts that you can safely complete from your living room or even your backyard. Also know that there are safety precautions you can take to keep yourself protected if you do feel like getting outside for a run, walk or other workout.

If motivation is an issue, fitness tech may be the solution. A smartwatch with fitness features like a step tracker and safety features like fall detection could be just what you need to get your exercise routines back on track. If you already have one or you’re looking for different incentives, consider a new outfit, gym membership, or sleek smart scale in a fashionable color.

Pairing up with a workout buddy can also be a boon. If you head outside and take proper precautions, there is no reason you can’t exercise with a friend, and you can reap benefits like egging each other on, less stress, and improved safety.

Make Self-Care a Health Priority

When you’re worried about the pandemic and busy with life, it can be all too easy to forget to take care of yourself. Make no mistakes tough: self-care is just as essential as eating healthy foods and getting regular exercise. In fact, exercise and diet are both basic self-care habits but you also need to look for routines that help you relieve stress during these tense times. Listening to a playlist that brings you joy or learning how to say “no” to people who tend to drain your energy are both effective ways to reduce stress and improve your mental health.

To relieve excess COVID stress, you can also try adding a few extra calming practices to your routine. Maybe spend a few minutes each day practicing deep and mindful breathing or take up a new hobby, like baking, drawing, or gardening.

These are stressful and uncertain times, so it’s understandable if you are not feeling like the best version of yourself. What’s important is that you recognize when you need to make a change and when you need to take better care of yourself. Hopefully the tips and resources in this guide will help you do just that.

To get help with addiction or get involved in the fight against the opioid crisis, read through these additional resources and Do It for Shelby.

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