Becoming Virtually Mindful … No, Mindful Virtually

This is the last in a series of blog posts helping you add value to your time in coronavirus quarantine.  We’ve pointed you to online resources for edutainment (museums, music, films, continuing education classes), virtual travel journeys, ways to entertain kids schooling from home, and support for exercise at home.

Today, we’re going to help you keep your sanity while sheltering-in-place.

I was already on an exploration of mindfulness before the pandemic arrived, and have welcomed the strategies to calm my anxiety-prone thoughts.  Especially the skill of noticing your thoughts without judgment, but not allowing yourself to get sucked into them.  “Oh look, I’m worried about [insert symptom or person’s name] … again.  How interesting . … Let’s return to deep breathing and clear that busy mind …”

This interview with Jack Kornfield gives you an introduction to the general principles and benefits of mindfulness, especially in the context of Covid-19.  Bottom line:  (1) accept fear, anxiety and grief as normal; and (2) try to let it go.  Breathe deep, breathe some more.

There are plenty of free resources available online to introduce you to mindfulness and guide you through your own mindfulness experience.  Here are a few to try:

·      Mind Control:  Managing your mental health during Covid-19 (U of Toronto, available through Coursera)

·      The Science of Wellbeing (Happiness) (Yale’s most popular course, available through Coursera)

·      Coronavirus Sanity Guide (Ten Percent Happier)

·      UCLA Mindful (UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center)

·      Insight Timer (guided meditations)

·      Balance: Meditation (app)

·      Shine: Calm Anxiety & Stress (app)

·      Ten Percent Happier Meditation (app)

·      Headspace (app)

·      Calm (app)

The unbelievable thing is, this mindfulness stuff really works.  There are neuroscience explanations for how/why it works (it really does rewire your brain), but take my word for it and try it for yourself.

Breathe deep, breathe some more.  Go wash your hands. Don’t check your email, newsfeed or social media for a bit.  Breathe deep, breathe some more.

Stay Safe, Exercise at Home

Depending on where you live, you’ve been experiencing shelter-in-place requirements for well over a month or only a couple weeks.  Or maybe you don’t have any such requirements, but you’re voluntarily staying out of virus harm’s way.  My county just extended its stay-at-home order to May 1, and clarified that exercise outdoors is restricted to the geography near your house.  Other counties near us have issued enforceable orders that forbid anyone from out-of-county coming in; so, I can’t do any of my favorites like hiking or camping.  Gyms, parks, playgrounds, swimming pools, weight rooms, yoga studios are closed for now.

If you’re like me, you’re indoors, eating and sitting much more than you usually do.  Other than walking or running in place while going one of the virtual tours of someplace beautiful in this previous blog post, what’s a person to do about getting exercise?  Some coaches and studios are offering free online resources to help you exercise while in quarantine:

·      Corepower Yoga is offering a special collection of free online classes (yoga and meditations)

·      Peloton is offering a 90-day free trial on many of their classes (bike and other equipment optional) (running, strength, toning, cycling, yoga, meditation and outdoor workouts)

·      Barre3 (The Bar Method) is offering a 15-day free trial starting April 13 (strength conditioning, cardio, mindfulness)

·      Daily Burn is offering a 30-day free trial (thousands of workout videos, plus running and yoga)

·      Gold’s Gym app is free until May 31 (600 audio and visual courses)

·      Yoga with Kassandra (10 minutes full body stretch for beginners every morning)

·      Amazon Prime Video has oodles of exercise videos for Prime members (i.e., not totally free); just search for the kind of exercise you’re interested in (yoga, exercise and fitness, Zumba, pilates, dance fitness, etc.)

·      Nike Training Club (workouts and fitness guidance)

·      Wakeout! (exercise for busy people)

Don’t leave the kids out of the exercise fun.  A PE teacher offers free online daily workouts for kids on YouTube.

Stay safe, exercise at home.

Mom, I’m bored. Can we go back to school yet? Please?

If you are the parent of K-12 kids in this time of coronavirus sheltering-in-place, you have my sympathies and respect.  You are playing so many roles:  teacher, teacher’s assistant, gym instructor, recess supervisor, mental health counselor, mediator, and of course, parent.  Oh, right, and you may also be trying to keep up with your own work from home.

Your approach to helping your kids spend their time at home productively may range from distributing and supervising homework provided by a land-based school, home-schooling (where you choose the topics) or unschooling (where the students choose the topics). 

Below are some free online resources to help you keep the kids engaged during those many hours of the day:

·      Early learning boost emails for 3-4-year olds (literacy, math, science)

·      Khan Academy:  Ages 2-18 remote learning resources

·      Other Goose:  Ages 2-7 lesson plans (20 min. lessons, available free for three weeks)

·      Childrens books’ authors read stories aloud online

·      Read Works:  K-12 reading comprehension instruction

·      Discovery K12:  online homeschool

·      Mystery Science lessons

·      Educational webinars from TEDEd

·      Lesson plans by grade level

·      Extensive list of resources available for free K-12 home schooling (English, math, science, physical education, languages, geography, music, art/design, drama, history, information technology (IT))

·      Mom creates periodic table battleship game to teach her kids chemistry

·      Harvard, MIT, UC Berkeley students give free tutoring to K-12 students

·      Minecraft video game offers free educational content

·      Daily online PE (physical education) classes for kids

And for high school and university students, or even the parents themselves!

·      Broadway shows:  digital tool kits for integrating the theater arts into standards-based curriculum, featuring student activities, suggested lessons, historical backgrounds and more

·      Harvard University online courses:  140 Harvard classes are publicly available online; this link provides a list of the 31 most interesting free courses (computer science, public health, politics, history, poetry, science of cooking, etc.)

·      Coursera courses:  100 free online courses available through May 31, including reading material, graded homework, projects, and a certificate of completion (public health, coding, mindfulness, updating a resume, learning to play guitar, etc.)

·      10 university art classes you can take for free online

·      Babbel makes its language learning app free for students in various countries

Virtual Travel: Enjoy the World (and Beyond), Even if You’re Living Under a Stay-at-Home Order

“Travel is not reward for working, it’s education for living.”  The Travel Channel, July 10, 2017.

I love to travel, and have had to cancel some trips recently due to coronavirus stay-in-place restrictions.  Many others around the world don’t have the privilege that I do, and can’t afford the time or money to travel under the best of circumstances.  At this virus-alert point in time, we are all in the same boat (pun intended).  We are all relegated to being armchair travelers.

There are a lot of virtual travel resources available, no passport or ticket required:

Virtual tours:

·      National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian, Washington DC)

·      The Louvre (Paris)

·      Museums around the world

·      2500 museums around the world

·      Great Wall of China

·      US national parks

·      More US national parks

·      Hawaii landmarks

·      NASA tour of outer space

·      3D replica of the surface of Mars

·      Instructions on how to use Google Street View to create your own virtual tour

(of anywhere)

Live webcams:

·      I Love You Venice

·      Eiffel Tower (Paris)

·      Zurich

·      Bavarian Alps

·      Copacabana Beach (Rio de Janeiro)

·      Beaches around the world

·      Jigokudani Monkey Park (Japan)

·      Clearwater Marine Aquarium (Florida)

·      Arosa Bear Sanctuary (Switzerland)

·      San Diego Zoo (California)

·      Georgia Aquarium (Atlanta GA)

·      Monterey Bay Aquarium (San Diego CA)

·      Wildlife around the world

·      Aurora Borealis / Northern Lights

Take a virtual trip just for fun, learn a little something about yourself and others along the way.  Safe travels – bon voyage – buen viaje – buon viaggio – gute Reise -- добре поїздка -- 旅途愉快

Coronavirus Have You Self-Isolating at Home? No Need to Be Bored

There are so many online educational resources being made available during this time of coronavirus, and they possibly may only be available for free right now.  So we’re compressing our blog posting schedule to make sure you have access to this incredible material.  What follows is just a random list of things that have come across my inbox or social media feed in the past week.  Feel free to email me here with additional resources you’re aware of, and we’ll post them in a future blog.

School children stuck at home

·      Education companies offering free subscriptions due to school closings

·      Childrens’ authors doing online read-alouds and activities

·      Daily home safari activity with Cincinnati Zoo

·      Archive of 6,000 historical children’s books

·      Streaming of birds in their nests

·      Zoos and aquariums around the world

·      Students can respond to daily writing prompts

Reading matter

·      Audible just made hundreds of titles completely free

·      Download over 300,000 books from New York Public Library for free

Museums

·      Palace of Versailles is offering a free virtual tour

·      Paris museums put 100,000 images online for unrestricted public use

·      Art galleries, museums, cultural sites around the world

·      12 famous museums offer virtual tours

Music / Films / Shows

·      Musicians are performing concerts in their homes (available on Instagram)

·      Metropolitan Opera music streaming

·      300 documentaries from International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam

·      15 Broadway plays and musicals you can watch on stage from home

·      Indigenous films online

·      Classical concerts, operas, plays, ballets from around the world

Exercise

·      Favorite apps for exercising at home

·      Nike training club

·      Wakeout!

·      Peloton at-home fitness

Adult continuing education classes

·      10 university art classes you can take for free online

·      The Science of Wellbeing (Yale U’s most popular class ever

·      Basics of coding (7 different courses recommended by Bill Gates)

Just plain fun

·      Lunch doodles with Mo Williams (sponsored by Kennedy Center for Performing Arts)

And finally, up-to-date information about coronavirus cases:

·      The website, cCoV2019.live

·      Created by a teen in Seattle WA

·      Tracking coronavirus cases since December 2019

What would we do without the internet?!  And the creativity and generosity of all these content contributors?  So much to be grateful for …

Stay safe, readers.  Wash hands, practice physical distance from others, avoid groups, practice self-isolation if you’re exhibiting any symptoms.