Reduced consumerism, putting less pressure on ourselves, prioritising friends and family and ethical action, as described in a recent article on vox.com and referred to in my previous blog post, are fantastic good intentions that have emerged from the lockdown. The article on vox.com sets out 4 more new post-lockdown habits:
1) Exercising daily
Many people who hadn’t previously been into fitness (or had been “too busy” for it) have taken up running, yoga or other activities during the lockdown, also as a way to cope with the constant onslaught of depressing coronavirus news. The explicit “permission” to engage in one form of exercise per day, either alone or with members of your household, has been vital to maintaining our sanity.
My personal experience:
I’ve always been into cycling and running and, more recently, into yoga as well, to wind down after long work days, but have recently come to appreciate these activities for what they are even more! My yoga classes at Emersons Green Village Hall with Hayley McAlinden from Empowered Living were cancelled until further notice, but I then joined live online yoga classes with Louise Hunt from Jala Flow Yoga. Doing yoga at home is a new habit I’m definitely going to keep.
2) Baking, vegetarian cooking, and growing herbs
Growing and making your own food is both sustainable and rewarding, especially during a pandemic and in the light of rampant uncertainty about whether the next time you pop round to the supermarket the shelves will actually be stocked! Interestingly, there’s recently also been a mindset shift regarding nutrition in that more of us now opt for vegetarian meals more often and deliberately aim to avoid meat.
My personal experience:
I’ve never been into cooking, baking or gardening, and the pandemic hasn’t changed that!
As a family we also enjoyed our weekly HelloFresh food and recipe box deliveries, chosen via the HelloFresh website. A perfect option for family meals “delivered safely to your door”, which helped avoid going out for food shopping.
3) Spending more time in nature
Spending time outdoors has benefitted the overall well-being of many of us as lockdown had descended upon us. No doubt it’s helped us manage our mental health better and calm our worrying minds in the face of coronavirus-related uncertainty. The wish to spend more time in nature post-lockdown ties in with the intention to exercise more regularly in future noted above in this blog post.
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| Spending time outdoors has benefitted the overall well-being of many of us as lockdown had descended upon us (image source: field near Shortwood, photo by Elisabeth Hippe-Heisler) |
My personal experience:
One of my favourite lockdown running routes has been a 5km route up Coxgrove Hill (or down it, depending on which direction I was running in) and through Shortwood, a nearby village. Being out on runs and in nature certainly kept my spirits up and was a great way to “get away from it all”!
And I’ve resolved to cycle a little more in future! I’m drafting this blog post sitting in the Southgate Street branch of Pret A Manger in Bath (near the station). I’ve cycled over from Emersons Green on the Bristol-to-Bath cycle path, which always affords the opportunity to take in the beauty of nature and striking surrounding countryside.
4) Working from home, if possible
Working from home comes with its own set of challenges, but also unique benefits and can be convenient in many respects. For us translators, the rigorous implementation of the lockdown hadn’t come as such a huge shock, as we’re used to working from home anyway. As translators, we were kind of trailblazers on that front.
My personal experience:
To tell the truth, life in lockdown didn’t differ hugely from my pre-lockdown life, and I was a bit taken aback to realise this! I’ve therefore decided to henceforth engage a bit more in “outward-facing” activities and have volunteered to become one of the two interim membership officers of my local translators’ and interpreters’ network, the Western Regional Group (WRG) when this opportunity came up recently.
I had also initially been worried about how all of us (my husband, my 2 children and me) being home all the time would pan out as I generally find it easiest to do translation work when I’m completely alone at home. Yet it all worked out fine in the end.
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| For me as a translator, life in lockdown didn’t differ hugely from my pre-lockdown life (image source: office door and sign, photo by Elisabeth Hippe-Heisler) |
The pandemic has shaken us up, but also opened our eyes. These fantastic new habits that many people have vowed to maintain have emerged from the lockdown, as described in a recent article on vox.com. Can you relate to them, too?
Read about 4 other new post-lockdown habits in my previous article “Coronavirus pandemic: 4 new post-lockdown habits”.
