Though we may have wished that lockdown had been over and done in a matter of months, sadly this was not the case. I’m sure that many of you, like me, had begun to accept the lockdown lifestyle as the new normal, with routines in place and consistency day to day. But hopefully it seems that we have reached the end, and adjustments to our routines will need to be made. Humans tend to be creatures of habit, comforted by familiarity and unsettled by change, so the end of Covid restrictions may be quite daunting for some.
Perhaps one of the largest differences many of us will notice will be the end of working from home, or perhaps the return to work from time off. While working from home, many will have modified routines to sleeping later and waking up later, as well as shorter work hours and less physical movement. It may be quite a shock to the system to resume a daily commute, work long hours and be regularly on your feet, so how can we prepare for the inevitable change? I would strongly recommend adjusting your routine ahead of going back to work, by slowly adjusting your alarm for earlier in the morning, and getting to bed earlier to accommodate a good night’s sleep. As they say, failure to prepare is preparing to fail, and likewise, ignoring the unavoidable change to our daily routine and sleeping pattern will only make it more challenging to adjust when the day comes.
Another thing that those of us who are highly active will experience is the change to our exercise routine. Through Covid, most of us have been making do with home workouts, or perhaps trading resistance training for extra cardio. There’s no doubt that our physicality will have changed, and so it’s important to recognise this when we resume our regular training habits. The key here is not to worry, or concern yourself with the fact that you may not be as strong as you were pre-Covid. Take your time, and adjust your workouts slowly to regain what you may have lost. Don’t sweat; it will surely come back with a little time.
What has happened to your eating habits? While some of you may have been super vigilant and stuck well to your diet and nutrition plans, many of us will have fallen victim to the boredom-eating and takeaways which are difficult to avoid at a time like this. Sadly, the Covid period has been long enough for these things to become a habit for many, and so it may not be a simple case of just immediately adjusting back to our healthy eating lifestyles. The thing with diets is that we need them to be consistent, and so jumping straight back into a healthy diet may present a high-failure rate as difficulty increases the chance that we will quit. We want to make the transition as easy as possible so that we are more likely to stick to the plan. Begin making small adjustments right away, rather than waiting to modify everything at once and you will find the transition far easier.
The truth is that regardless of your current position, we will all notice changes, whether to our professional or social lives, our mental or physical wellbeing, our hobbies and lifestyle or other. The key to the ease of adjusting all of these is incremental change. Don’t ask too much of yourself by jumping straight back in, start making small changes to your daily routine today in preparation for change. Set your alarm a little earlier, get some exercise in, cook a healthy meal, go for a walk. Make these small changes and you’ll find these adjustments far easier.
