If you are home more often due to the COVID-19 concerns, you may be finding yourself more preoccupied with the food at your fingertips and lack of a schedule which can often lead to grazing throughout the day, eating more than you intended or eating more of the foods that provide less immune-boosting nutrients.
Here are a few tips to help you to reduce those tendencies:
Make every effort to stay on a routine sleep/wake and meal/snack cycle, even if this needs to be modified from your typical work day away from home.
Separate eating space from working space so that you are deliberate and intentional in taking a break to eat. When you eat while distracted with work, you aren’t closely attuned to your hunger and fullness feelings.
Staying nourished at consistent times during the day rather than sporadically will help reduce periods of significant hunger which can lead to over-eating or emotional eating.
If you need to find non-food ways to calm yourself, consider:
- A calming app that provides meditation, deep breathing or soothing bedtime stories.
- Listen to soothing, spiritual, classical or uplifting music. Nature sounds can be relaxing.
- Invite a cat in the lap – or a dog – or use a weighted blanket, pillow, or eye mask.
- Use a heated pad, hot bath or hot foot bath to ease tense muscles.
- Read or listen to a book, pursue home-based continued education for your profession.
If you have trouble sitting still, consider these:
- Exercise at home, in the yard or in the neighborhood. Involve the family.
- Organize your pantry, toss expired foods & utilize those that will expire soon.
- Organize other areas of the home or finish that project you’ve been putting off.
- Clean – a clean home is very important to prevent the spread of germs.
- Invest in family time – pull out those board games!