Today marks the beginning of the second week I have been working from home, teaching my classes virtually. Thankfully, the school I work for already had a system of virtual learning in place that we were all trained for because many of our students had different conditions leading them to take classes from the comfort of their home. Before last week, though, teachers never worked from home, even if most of their day was full of virtual classes.

At first, I thought this was going to be a temporary or optional arrangement, that I would be back in my classroom this week or next, but it is looking like we may be in this situation until the end of April or May. And that’s being optimistic.

Around the country and the world, millions of people are having to learn to work from home (if they are lucky enough to keep their job in the first place), and while it may seem fun at first, it can lead to a lot of health problems, mentally and physically, especially because we are advised to avoid people as much as possible.

For my own well-being, I started compiling a list last week of all the tips and tricks of working from home in a self-isolating time. I figured I would share it in case anyone out there is needing help with keeping themselves healthy and sane:

• Exercise throughout the day and stretch regularly

Rather than just spending 30 minutes to an hour of your day exercising, I have found it to be better to do smaller exercises and stretch routines throughout the day. My schedule for this is usually right before I start work, during my lunch break, and directly after work, sprinkling in more if I am feeling particularly restless.

• Keep your place and work space clean and orderly

Not only does this help keep you sane, but it also gives you another activity to keep you moving and allows you to check something off your to-do list and feel a little more accomplished than you would otherwise. I don’t know about you, but with how much of my day was spent at work, I would allow small messes to exist for awhile and chores to go undone until the weekend. Now, I clean up my messes and get my chores done as soon as I can so that my surroundings stay neat and tidy, creating less stress in my life.

• Open your windows to let fresh air circulate

This depends on the weather for the day and what region you live in, but for where I live, most days have had nice enough weather to open up all my windows, though I still do it on muggy or rainy days like today. The reason for this is that air can grow stall if it isn’t properly circulated, and that doesn’t mean just turning a fan on. That just stirs the air around. Getting fresh air, even when you have to be in your house working, can do wonders for your health.

• Spend a lot of time outside (go for walks, sit on your porch, take a hike, etc.)

While we can’t go to the movies, bars, libraries, or wherever it is you like to go, we can still go outside. A change of scenery with fresh air all around is always good for the body and soul. Doing activities outside, or even just sitting on your porch, can be a cure to everyone suffering from cabin fever. You can even get some human interaction by waving or talking to your neighbor from afar.

• Spend time reading and writing

With TV, video games, and cellphones, our first instinct nowadays is to go for one or all of these things after we are done with work. If you are working from home, you are working in front of a computer, even if it isn’t every hour of the day. You need to give your eyes and brain a break from the screen. Plus, reading and writing is good for you and will give you something productive to do with your free time.

• Play with, groom, and train your pets

The ones benefiting most from self-isolation are pets because they no longer have to worry if we are going to come back when we leave for work in the morning. Spending time with them can be really beneficial for us, as well, and it gives you time to work with them on tricks and habits they have still not developed yet. Want to teach Spot to play dead and Tiger to use the toilet instead of the litter box? Now you have the time to teach them!

• Eat healthy and in moderation

This is something that we should all try to do regardless of self-isolation, but with us being stuck in more or less one place, it is going to be even easier for us to fall into an unhealthy routine, both physically and nutritionally. With restaurants closing down, now would also be a perfect time to learn how to make healthy meals at home.

• Call and text your loved ones regularly

With self-isolation/quarantine, we are limited to the amount of human contact we can have. For most, it is only significant others and/or children, but there are a lot of people out there are having to hold up in their house all by themselves. Both for the people who are living with others and those alone, we need to make sure we are staying connected with people on the outside. Check in with your parents and siblings, friends that you used to always hang out with, and coworkers you enjoy talking to. It will make this whole experience feel a lot less lonely.

• Learn/develop new skills

What better time to learn how to cook or knit or speak another language than when you have more free time on your hands? Without a commute or anywhere to go after work, there is a lot of time for you to FINALLY learn that skill you have had on your New Year’s resolution list for years. For me, I am developing my knitting and other crafting skills, cooking and baking, and creating a meditation routine for myself.

• Keep a daily journal and track what is going on in the world

Keeping track of what is going on in the world is something that I am having my history students doing for an assignment and suggesting for my other students and my coworkers to do the same. We are living in a unique situation, and while we have had plagues and other major disasters happen to the human race, nothing quite like this has ever happened before. It sounds glum, but it helps us to take a more active role in what is going on. If this is too negative for you, just keeping a daily journal of what is going on in your own personal life is a great option, too.

• Be grateful for what you have

Things suck right now. I am not going to try to convince you otherwise. But when things suck, that is when we really need to be practicing gratitude for all the good things we have in our life. I cannot give examples here because I am not sure what things you have to be grateful for, but I do know that many of those things are taken for granted in our regular day-to-day. Take a moment and write everything down and put it somewhere you can see it throughout your day.