We have already seen the environment improving as a result of people staying at home more. But what about our lives?

For some, quarantine and stay-at-home orders can put a lot of pressure on mental health, especially people who rely on their daily schedules for consistency and regularity. With such massive and instantaneous changes, a lot of people are feeling stressed out, anxious, and depressed.

However, on the other hand, for others, while they still want life to go back to normal, are taking advantage of quarantine and stay-at-home orders to relax and regain stability in their life.

Prior to quarantine, daily life can be overwhelming, stressful, and chaotic. Deadlines, appointments, responsibilities, maintaining healthy social lives, sleep schedules, diet, family, etc. can all become a whirlwind of activity.

“Life before quarantine involved school and studying from when I wake up to when I go to sleep,” said Roselyn Dai. “The stress was not bad, usually except on weeks where all my teachers decide to assign some test or essay.”

Another Lakeridge student said, “I was in so many extra curricular activities during school and I had to be in so many different places all the time where it made my life extremely chaotic and overwhelming.”

For many people like myself, quarantine has been beneficial for getting stress under control. We get to control what time we wake up and what time we get to go to bed. We don’t need to worry about dressing up for school, we can just turn off the camera and not worry what our appearances are. We have a whole week to do our homework. We don’t need to worry about transporting ourselves to places we need to go, and we can eat when we want to and whenever we want to.

“With everything centralized on one computer, it has been a massive relief for me and I have been able to get so much done,” said the student.

I have been able to read books I have been meaning to read for months, watch new movies and shows, and learn to bake and cook new foods. I can take a nap at 12 if I want to. That is both in the A.M. and P.M.

“Now with quarantine, I have more time to read, draw, sleep, and do what I want since classes are mostly self taught,” said Dai.

It’s the optimistic view during these times to appreciate the little things that you don’t get to have in your everyday life. Of course, we all miss our friends (for those that are actually following social distancing guidelines), or our classmates and teachers, but there are also a lot of good things that have been brought to us during this time.

Be grateful for what you have and take advantage of the control over your life that you have been given during these times.