It’s Day 7 of being quarantined in France:
There I was executing my normal morning routine in the living room—some handstand push-ups, and then a conditioning piece with burpees and jumping squats on that particular day—breathing heavily, thumping noisily (poor Francois who lives below), feeling the stir craziness and growing anxiety ooze from my body.
Four feet from me, my cousin’s husband is displaying 100 percent focus on a phone call with his bank’s fraud department. Turns out, our excessive quarantine-related Amazon ordering—adjustable dumbbells, liters upon liters of liquid egg whites because France is right out of eggs, a leg of Serrano ham, foie gras, a dart board, a soda maker, 12 tubs of peanut butter, a few boxes of wine and tuna to last us a lifetime—caused an alert for suspicious activities.
Meanwhile, to my left—also just a few feet from my burpee-ing body—my cousin is holding a clipboard as she takes careful inventory of our beef jerky and dehydrated food stock stashed in the corner, looking unphased by my heavy breathing and her husband’s credit card woes.
Behind me, her 5-year-old daughter is watching her iPad at a deafening volume, while her 4-year-old son is in his own world singing a song he composed about pee and poo to the melody of Lewis Capaldi’s Someone You Love.
Editor’s note: This article is an op-ed. The views expressed herein and in the video are the author’s and don’t necessarily reflect the views of BarBend. Claims, assertions, opinions, and quotes have been sourced exclusively by the author.
Welcome to the lockdown, small French-apartment style!
A little more context:
It’s day nine of the lockdown in Etampes, France—a town 50 km outside of Paris with a population of 25,000—where I’m currently living in quarantine with my cousin and her family.
Right now, we’re not allowed to leave the house at all, unless we have a document and there’s an extreme reason. If you do have to go somewhere, you must travel alone and can’t travel more than 2 km from your home. You’re no longer even allowed to go for a bike ride.
The streets, and the bustling train station, which I can see from my apartment window, is completely deserted. Though we aren’t yet seeing military tanks outside of our house like in Italy, the police presence has increased tremendously and they’re enforcing the quarantine harder with each day. They have even thrown some violators in jail.
Back to Day 7:
Mid-burpee, I become acutely aware of what ordinarily would be a ridiculous environment for exercise: I burst into tear-inducing laughter and fail to complete my burpee.
“This is actually our life right now!”
Though the craziness of being quarantined hit me hard in that moment, the truth is, in just nine days, we have all basically adjusted to this way of living. Human beings have a crazy capacity for adaptation, don’t we?
And while I wouldn’t call myself an expert on being quarantined yet (I mean, give me a few more days at least), I have picked up a few tricks that I’d like to pass along to my home country of Canada, the United States, and others who are currently in the social distancing phase, and are probably just a week or two behind France (in my opinion).
1. Work out first thing in the morning
The saying, You always feel better after a workout, couldn’t be more true than when you’re facing cabin fever or anxiety. Whether you’re worried about your job, your health, your mom’s health, the long term ramifications on the economy and falling into a 1930s-like depression (or you’re going down rabbit holes like I did the other day sifting through inconsistent information about the number of ICU beds in France, Canada and the United States), working out in the morning releases the anxiety and sets you up for a better, happier day.
I also recommend following some kind of official workout program. Whether you get a personal coach to program for you, or you follow your gym’s online programming if they’re offering one, following a specific program during this time has helped keep me accountable to my workouts each day.
Typically, I have been working out solo following my gym MadLab School of Fitness’ programming, but I have also had fun joining in on a couple group workouts via Zoom with other CrossFit affiliates. It’s cool to keep my finger on the pulse and get new ideas in terms of what other gyms are doing, as well. (Thank you Element CrossFit and CrossFit London for letting me be a guest at your gym).
2. Say yes to everything
You finally have extra time on your hands. Become a yes man or woman, because you never know what types of distractions and fun you might create.
“Want to Facetime?”
My first thought: ‘Uggh. I hate FaceTime.’
Instead, I said yes and it turned out to be the most heartwarming conversation I have had in weeks.
“Do you want to play smash ball?”
My thought: ‘I’m useless at racket sports.’
I said yes anyway, and smashball—a cross between tennis and volleyball, played with wooden paddles and a plastic ball the size of a ping pong ball—has been the source of serious fun and entertainment here.
“Should we mix these two soups together?”
“Hell, yes!”
Best soup so far.
“Want to join my gym’s Zoom workout in 10 minutes?”
“I’m already two glasses of wine in. It’s evening here! But yes, yes I do.”
An hour later, I felt like a million bucks.
The point is: Stay open minded and don’t turn down opportunities. Fun lies in the strangest, most unexpected places during a lockdown.
3. Create a schedule
While I think this is a great tip for everyone, it’s especially true if you have young children.
The first two days of our lockdown, the three adults in our house didn’t have a real plan with regards to the children, and it started to feel like nobody was getting a break from their constant pleas.
After five days, we made a schedule—we set specific blocks of time where each of us is responsible—which has made a world of difference in giving us each some time off, even if we are still within earshot of the chaos. It has allowed me to take a two-hour bath guilt-free knowing, “I’m off duty.”
Coming up with a plan of what you’re going to do with the kids during your time also helps. During my four-hour shift this afternoon, we’re going to gather rocks from our backyard (backyard is a generous term in our case) and paint them. Then we’re going to bake healthy cookies.
4. Be productive
While I’m lucky because, as a writer, I have largely been working from home for a decade—from the kitchen table or even the bathtub—something else that is keeping me sane at this time is the fact that I can still be productive and work.
The downside is the line between work and relaxation space gets blurred when you’re at home and you can end up always working. So I highly recommend setting aside a block of productive time, thus giving yourself a license to just chill out at times, as well.
Obviously not everyone has the opportunity to work from home the way I can. If this is the case, then make a list of tasks that would make you feel productive and that you have been putting off (cough…might be time to clean out your garage), and then chip away one by one. Or it might be a good opportunity for you to finally finish that Precision Nutrition Level 1 coaching course you started a year ago, like me.
5. Pick up the phone
Most of us spend way more time texting than calling. In ordinary times, the only person I talk to on the phone regularly is mother. But I have been making an effort to call and FaceTime friends back home, to laugh and share stories, and it has provided some seriously good distracting, heartwarming moments.
Bonus tip: Keep your sense of humor
In our claustrophobic apartment, we have taken to creating (what we think is a funny) Instagram account: One man’s journey trying to survive the lockdown through online ordering while stuck in France. Even though @coronacastaway only has 34 followers so far, it has provided us with many laughs already.
Of course, this isn’t to say we’re not taking this pandemic seriously. But if you don’t have humor, it’s going to be a whole lot worse.
Stay fit. Eat healthy. Play. Be productive. And keep laughing.
