Enjoy Your Backyard This Staycation

Your spring break vacation plans have been completely foiled, and the prospect of a low-key staycation is highly in the cards. Making sacrifices that keep you, your family and your neighbors healthy is so worth it, but staying indoors with family for many consecutive days will drive anyone stir crazy! Solar Pool Technologies suggests that you step into the great outdoors, your very own backyard, to get through these times with sanity.

Here are some relaxing and entertaining activities to enjoy in your backyard haven during a period of self-isolation:

  • Watch the sunrise with a cup of coffee
  • If the water is nice, take a dip in your crystal-clear swimming pool
  • Read a book or take a nap in a hammock
  • Have a healthy picnic
  • Play a board game or put together a puzzle
  • Do yoga or learn to meditate
  • Play tag or another classic outdoor game for kids
  • Write letters to family and friends
  • Have a backyard scavenger hunt
  • Organize your shed
  • Start a garden
  • Bird watch, or just listen
  • Let the kids pitch a tent and toast marshmallows
  • Grill out some of those meats in the freezer
  • Blow some bubbles
  • Fill a time capsule and bury it
  • Write a chapter of that book you’ve been dying to get started
  • Paint a picture – perhaps one of your backyard
  • Have a water fight
  • Set up an obstacle course to wear the kids out
  • Stargaze

This is just a sampling of activities to appreciate in your backyard. What is important is that you are getting fresh air, enjoying the beauty of nature and spending time with loved ones. It has been proven that spending time outside offers significant and wide-ranging health benefits. One global report found that exposure of more than 290 million people to greenspace reduced the risk of type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, premature death, preterm birth, stress, and high blood pressure.

Another study had similar findings. “…just enjoy nature…you relax and reduce stress, and then you feel more happy,” said study co-author Hon Yuen, director of research in the occupational therapy department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Spending time outdoors encourages physical activity and maintains mood and mental health. Some research even suggests that green space is associated with a lower risk of developing psychiatric disorders — all findings that doctors are taking seriously and relaying to their patients. Some physicians are even writing prescriptions for greenspace. These “nature prescriptions” advise patients to spend an hour each week playing tennis, for instance, or exploring fields near their home. In our circumstances today, the greenery of your backyard will do.

Solar Pool Technologies encourages you to remain distant from social scenarios, and to keep yourself and your family safe and sound by enjoying your backyard space during this time of isolation.