If you’re new to working from home – WFH as we now call it – you know that getting away from work is often not easy. I’ve done it for over a decade and love it.

If only you, too, could join Zoom meetings dressed for business from the waist up. Those sweatpants never made it to the office, but they sure feel good now.

Let’s take a reality check before we talk ways to take much-needed breaks to revive body, mind and spirits during lockdown.

Americans Are Working Longer Hours At Home

Many Americans now working from home amid the coronavirus pandemic say they're putting in longer hours, getting less rest and sometimes are even burning out as the boundary between work and home disappears. Researchers, from Harvard Business School and NYU Stern School of Business say they are correct, concluding that “people worked an average of 48.5 minutes more per day, compared with the pre-virus period.”

In truth, we don’t know what lies on the road ahead – and that can feel unnerving.

Are you worrying about your parents, especially if they are elderly? Are you working from home alone, or with the added responsibility of childcare? Are you in charge of home schooling or at least of being certain that the kids log-in for their online classes on time?

If you live in the United States with kids, you honestly don’t know what the plan is for schooling this fall. Wired writes in early August that an estimated 20 to 30 percent. of the nation’s school districts—including New York City, where 1 million students attend public school—are planning to implement a hybrid model. In this case groups of kids attend in person on alternating, part-time schedules.

If you have more than one child, you only hope they are on the same hybrid schedule. Then life could be at least semi-orderly again.

Today William Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health said this strategy is the worst possible idea, writes Wired. Say what?

“I don’t see how, in the end, this helps teachers,” says Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health added to the debate today. “I don’t fully get the hybrid model.”

Some form of control is absolutely necessary in your life right now. When it’s all feeling overwhelming, here’s how to create some enriching and nourishing breaks — 5 different ways.

Get Some Fresh Air

Move – preferably outside, although I do jump on my vibrating machine for 5-10 minutes at a time to keep muscles from stiffening and the blood flowing with too much sitting. Every health professional will tell you to get outside – with or without the kids in tow.

We weren’t meant to be inside all day, so try to establish a regular schedule for walks or a hustle to the gym, if yours is open. In a seemingly out-of-control world, any semblance of routine is a positive attribute right now. Keeping stress low with a dose of the feel-good endorphins that exercise activates is recommended by all authorities in every discipline.

Prepare Some Food

One of the greatest things with working from home is that the kitchen is close. A rewarding activity to do during your breaks is to prepare some food.

You can get a lot done in a twenty-minute break, and it gives you something to look forward to at lunch time. It’s even better when you prepare food that’s healthy, and here there really aren’t excuses for bad behavior.

Believe that weight gain from snacking is almost guaranteed when working from home. Devise a plan to make food that’s delicious but also tied to your more sedentary lifestyle. Personally, I advise going on carb control unless you are getting regular workouts.

A little comfort food goes a long way. Yes, it fills an emotional need but you will not be happy when you next try to zip up your trousers. Sweatpants are forgiving. Tailored pants and jeans are not.

My list doesn’t include a mantra like “this is not forever; this is not forever.” Perhaps it should be added, as mantras can serve a real purpose in helping us steady our need for escape, if only for a minute.

Play a Game

“Here she comes with the games,” you say. Let’s be clear. You’re right; I am not a gamer. The last time I played a slot machine for real was in Puerto Rico after lunch with my darling, and we were waiting for our small plane to Peter’s Island. But I won big.

We can get all holier-than-thou about online gaming, but my friends do it all the time.

Before we talk playing games online, I remind you that drinking consumption is up worldwide. Nielsen reports alcohol sales in stores were up 54% in late March compared to that time last year, while online sales were up nearly 500%.

For the week ending May 2, total alcohol sales in the U.S. were up by more than 32% compared to the same week one year ago, writes the Yale School of Medicine. “The World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) have issued communications warning people to avoid excessive drinking, saying it may increase COVID-19 susceptibility and severity. “

Better games than a lunchtime glass of wine, in my playbook. So you will get no grief from me if you want to play an online game for awhile, whether it’s playing online slots, shooting some bubbles on Candy Crush (my FB friends ALL do it) or filling out a mind-challenging crossword.

Most health experts agree all three digressions are better than drinking. But do set a time limit on your escape.

Read a Book

“Self-isolation around the world has seen a boom in reading,” said Hugo Setzer, International Publishers Association (IPA) president. “Books and reading are the ideal way of escaping our four walls, but also to understand what is happening around us, how to overcome this and how to make our lives better in the future.”

Perhaps because it’s an election year or people are just trying to understand the US civic landscape, politically related biographies and memoirs gained, and children’s print gained 12 percent over the second quarter of 2019. Civics-related books were up 35 percent in the second quarter compared to the first.

Create Something

My first thoughts are to keep a journal and take a break to write in it. How are you doing? How are the kids doing? How are those you love doing?

Are you angry, scared, accepting, rising to the moment or feeling overwhelmed? Write down your feelings and thoughts in a journal that is just for you. Creating a personal diary typically generates significant mental health benefits.

Additionally, reading your journal or diary helps see you see changing patterns in your outlook.

Add pictures or collages to your journal. You can’t control very much during lockdown, but you can control these pages. Children can also keep journals and make collages of how they are feeling. We all know that children’s lives are totally turned inside out.

The idea of creating something beautiful and lasting resonates during this time of trouble worldwide.

When I traveled internationally almost every month, I took up needlepoint. To this day, my eyes get so much pleasure looking at my beautiful pillows -- knowing that those stitches traveled from Paris to Bangkok and on to Hong Kong.

There’s a sense of constancy to needlepoint that is very grounding in turbulent times. So find a bit of artistry that suits you and create something beautiful. I suppose a psychologist would say: create something that represents how you feel – beautiful, ugly, angry — or a combo.

But I say: create something colorful, something of promise and possibility, . . . evolving one day at a time –one stitch, one word, one doodle -- as we embark on new patterns of living in a world that feels very adrift in this moment. Infuse it with positive energy from deep inside you. You have it, so unleash it for your special project.

These days call for anchors, and not all anchors are created equal. Invest in yourself own enrichment with these five quick breaks and make them yours permanently. ~ Anne