By: Rebeccah Fleischmann

1. Take a break from social media. The fake-news pandemic about Coronavirus is very real and getting stressed out over reading countless articles will not make you feel better. Trust me on that one.                                                                                    

2. Take care of your body. Take deep breaths when you are stressed, and stretch. There are several YouTube videos out there on home workouts; watch some! I recommend Blogliates, Yoga Alliance, and POPSUGAR Fitness. I personally do yoga every day, which helps me stay in shape and stay calm. This brings me to my next suggestion: try meditation. Judson Brewer, a professor at Brown University, and his team of researchers found that daily meditation can reduce anxiety by 57 to 63 percent. I meditate using the Muse headband set, but some of my friends use the apps Headspace or Calm, which are available for free on the app store.                                                                           

3. Try to make a routine for yourself. On Friday, my family and I sat down to write down everything that we have to accomplish in these next two weeks. Every day, I write a schedule, do work and study for each class just as if I was at school. Your routine can be different and can be as simple as eating meals and taking a run at the same time each day. Simply having a plan can ease a lot of your anxiety, speaking from experience. Even the most successful people in the world, such as Warren Buffet, schedule their lives to the T to be highly efficient.                                                               

4. Do something that you enjoy. For me, I love writing and painting, so I decided to do those things everyday. For my friends, they like drawing, running, playing basketball, and playing tennis. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you enjoy it. We have to find a new normal during times like these and it shouldn’t be all work and no play.                        

5. Connect with others. Now that most of us are quarantined, we have to keep in contact with our friends. It makes everyone feel better to text, snap, DM, and facetime their people. I just got a new Snapchat yesterday and it reminded me how easy it can be to make new friends, if we just put the effort in. In an unexpected way, the Coronavirus crisis can serve to bring us together, but only if we let it. Talk to people that you trust, whether that is your friend in another town or state, or your family who lives in another country, about how you feel and listen to how they are feeling.                                                                                                                                                                               

Whether you meditate, connect with others, or do something you enjoy, stay calm and carry on through this Coronacation!