Quaran-Teen
When the quarantine first began, I treated it like a Christmas vacation. I began staying up all night, letting my room spiral into a mess, eating sweets whenever I wanted, and pushing schoolwork off to the side, telling myself “I’ll do it tomorrow.” After weeks of this behavior, I started to notice it was taking a huge toll on my mental and physical health. Sleeping through half the day and staying up all night made me feel constantly off-schedule and tired. Not eating enough healthy food made me feel sick and sluggish. I started to become overwhelmed by schoolwork piling up. Within a short amount of time, I realized it was imperative that I made some changes.
The first change I made was adjusting my sleep schedule. In the beginning, it was difficult to fall asleep since I was so used to staying up on social media or texting my friends, but by putting on soft music and turning the notifications off on my phone, I was finally able to go to sleep at a reasonable hour. Of course, this also made waking up in the morning much easier. Each morning I felt energized and refreshed like I was able to tackle anything. By fixing my sleep schedule, I was also able to resolve my problem with procrastinating on my schoolwork. Some weeks I had even managed to get all my work done within the first three days. In time, I started to set new goals for myself. I began doing some workouts that I’d seen on Instagram and YouTube and trying new recipes for healthy foods. I felt like a completely different person.
While I had fixed two of the major problems developed during the quarantine, I knew there were still more improvements to make. My next project was to clean my room. At first, I was intimidated to say the least, but within just a few hours it looked like it was out of a magazine. By simply cleaning my room, I felt much more put-together and calm. It was relaxing to wake up and go to sleep in an organized room, and it brought me comfort to see it looking so nice. Although I had finally addressed all my problems and gotten myself together, I still missed everyday interactions with people. Because I was unable to hang out with friends, I spent more time focusing on my family; eating dinner together each night, watching movies with them, and calling my relatives, I felt more connected to my family and we were able to better support each other through the lockdown.
It was easy to spiral out of control and fall into unhealthy habits during the lockdown. The most important thing I had to remember was that I was accountable for what I spent my time doing. I had to ask myself, in looking back on my time during quarantine would I approve of the way I spent it? By surrounding myself with healthy habits and supportive people, I was able to make a drastic change in my lifestyle. Now I’m confident that I’ll be able to look back when this is all over and be proud of how I spent my quarantine.
Kudos Magazine Volume 6.2 By Monica Facchinello