Koji Yamamoto
How to Stay In is a series about redefining "normal" life in order to take care of ourselves and one another during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Sandi Mann, a psychology professor at the University of Lancashire who studies how the workplace affects our emotions, said a big part of enjoying vacation time under quarantine involves adjusting our expectations. We may not be able to get the same level of sensory experience we would from a typical vacation, but we can find a way to enjoy the forms of stimulation we have at our disposal.“It’s about looking for the beauty in the mundane and finding the joy in everyday life without needing high levels of stimulation—rediscovering the sunsets, leaves, the bird songs, and leaving our expectations behind,” Mann said. She recommended looking at the weather forecast ahead of time and picking a day or two when it will be nice enough outside to take a walk along a different route, or to a neighborhood you don’t usually visit.Vacation is about having sensory experiences we don’t usually have in our day-to-day lives, and if we engage our senses we can approximate the feeling of being on vacation, even under quarantine.
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