GLOBALLY UNEXPECTED BENEFITS OF LOCKDOWN: COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Benefits of Lockdown? Yes, you have read it right. Globally Lockdown has left the worst effect on our minds. But let’s just try to look into it with a completely different perspective.

I have read it somewhere that your mind is a garden and you are a gardener, and you are planting seeds (thoughts) in your mind all day long. Your mind is like a soil that accepts every kind of seed, good or bad. We got 60,000 thoughts in a day, but we look upon the things, which our mind actually wants us to look at. As someone said it right, “Everything has a positive reason behind it you just need a perspective to look into it.” Let’s see it how “A Grey Mind in this Black World’’ looks with a positive approach towards unexpected benefits of lockdown. 

From our Daily rush to just a stop in our world. Locked in at our place. Has our freedom been gone? We are not living our life to the fullest? The answer is “NO.” In the time of lockdown, we have been learning so many small things that were just being ignored in our regular life. One of The most significant things in this lockdown is to come out from our busy schedule and know the importance of our loved ones – family, friends, and the people in our local and wider communities. The importance of a hug, a handshake, a high five! Parties, gatherings, nights out at the pub! All had been significantly looking important to us. Many of us have been living far from our places and missing the delicious food made by our mothers. Now we have this precious opportunity of eating homemade food daily.

If we consider a previous scenario, we all had been moving towards social media but right now we have seen the importance towards our family members. We just want to express that this time won’t come back, soon everything will same like before and our life will start moving in speed.

 

There are a few advantages of this lockdown. (Coronavirus Pandemic)

 

1.    Family Time: 

The importance of a hug, a handshake, a high five! Parties, gatherings, nights out at the pub! Visiting our loved ones in the hospital. We have become more aware and grateful of our keyworkers such as the people who work in the NHS in all capacities, who work in all our care sectors, our engineers, transport drivers, construction workers, shopkeepers… the list goes on and on. This new appreciation of the people in our life will enhance all our relationships when life is back to normal, hopefully with the knock-on effect of more peace and harmony across the globe. Let’s just slow down, let’s just start spending time with our family and enjoy those little things coming in our way. Let’s just again be those cranky and pampered kids of our parents which we were before moving out or before getting too much involved in our lives. Let’s just give that time to our loved ones which we somehow missed to give because of our jobs, colleges, schools.

 

 

2.    Skill Learning:

 

Being indoors for the majority of the day during this “curfew” has led some of us to take up new hobbies or has helped us in generating new interest. Whether it’s a renewed interest in baking (you just have to look at Instagram or YouTube to see how many keen amateur bakers there now are), reading the book you’d always meant to pick up, mastering the splits, or learning a new language on apps, learning a new course like medical coding or digital marketing and be updated with the trend, in general, there are plenty of ways to pass the time while your regular life is on pause.

 

3.    Health Improvement:

In this lockdown, Exercise has suddenly become a “no-brainer” and we are all understanding that increasing the strength of the immune system and the lungs is paramount. With all this time, we have now lost the “I have no time to exercise” excuse! We are also learning to use the power of technology to work out and smaller areas without the need for gyms or expensive equipment inside our own homes. We all have known the benefits of “Yoga” and “Meditation” but we have seen the level of ignorance towards it because yoga itself demands a lot of patience, determination, and sustainability which the current generation failed to give due to their hectic and speedy life. So, in this current coronavirus, people are getting back to their roots i.e. yoga as they can concentrate on themselves because of flexibility in working. Hopefully, every country in the world after this will have a stronger and “fit for purpose” health care system.

4.    Digitization:

Like many other different things or situations this current pandemic has also proven how crucial digitization is to future-proofing economies, businesses, and regulators. In recent years we witnessed so many measures that turned out to be so useful and in current crises as well. Few regulator reforms show the importance in the present situation including enabling e-voting, digital payments and digital stores. As the country is getting updated day by day, digitization will just make sure that we are prepared for another global crisis. As moving from paper to data also means new technologies – like AI, machine learning, and big data – can be used to their full potential. And, as for country like “INDIA” digitization is reaching out to another level and we have seen so many businesses moving towards online and still working in this situation. Also, it has become one of the trendiest carrier options to work upon and made us live our lives on our own terms as a digital entrepreneur.

5.    Enhancement of Environment:

 

In the sudden changes in the environment due to the current lockdown presents us with a unique learning situation in terms of a considerable reduction in air pollution levels. Within two weeks into the initial 21-days lockdown Delhi's air quality status had already achieved the "satisfactory" or "good" category.

These changes in various air pollutants over time was then examined with relation to the reduction, there are changes in the number of premature deaths and new cases of childhood asthma are very less compared to the expected incidence. There were clean waters in Venice, blue skies in Delhi and wild animals boldly wandering through quiet cities – limits on travel has been benefiting the Earth, with carbon emissions expected to be down by a record-breaking eight percent. If that sounds underwhelming, that’s a loss of two to three billion tons of global-warming gas.

The National Trust’s head of nature conservation Ben McCarthy said: “With less traffic and fewer people, we’ve heard deafening levels of bird song and seen famous monuments and formal gardens colonized by wildlife.”

6.    The Gift Of Time:

 

In the survey, it was noted that at the end of 2019, we were spending an average of 59 minutes of our day commuting to and from the office – longer than ever before. A combination of a lack of investment in transport infrastructure and the high cost of living in built-up cities made it difficult and undesirable to be based close to work, while many companies remained resistant to the idea of flexible working for employees (either from home or in remote working spaces).

This spare time has given us more time to dip into a novel or two, with a survey by Nielsen Book reporting a 41 percent increase in the number of people reading books. And people are following what they always wanted but couldn’t follow up because of their busy life.

 

In the end I just want to say that like me we all are waiting for life getting back to that same track, opening schools, colleges, shopping and every single place but this time with family will never come back as many of us will be back to their jobs, rushing in life and ending up missing this time, ending up missing this peace, ending up missing these happy moments which are away from all the tension, chaos, hardships, loneliness. In this situation we all have learned this one precious thing that we don’t know that what might happen tomorrow so it's better to live in the present moment and make billions of memories to cherish in the future and be with the people who genuinely love us the most in this world i.e. “OUR Family”

 

We hope you liked it and could relate to it in some ways with what’s going in your life.

 

Let’s meet you soon with a new blog. Till the time just Like, Subscribe and Share with your friends and near ones and motivate them to use this lockdown in a different way with a different point of view. Please do share your reviews in the comment section.  

 

Till then Spread Positivity, Stay Strong, and Stay Safe and Keep Smiling.