Since the shelter in place has been tightened, with beaches and now parks being closed, I'm posting some ideas for connecting with nature from your home. If you're feeling cooped up and zoomed out, these can help you get back in your body and feel into the real world, where it's spring and new life is burgeoning.

1. If you're able to take walks in your neighbourhood:

• Connect with plants and trees. What's budding? What's flowering? Do you smell the flowers or do you walk on by?
• Even if your neighbourhood has no parks or gardens, you can tune into pockets of weeds and wastelands--what tiny forests and miniature flowers can you find? What insects are out and about? What different kinds of birds can you spot?
• Enjoy the weather. Take a walk in the rain and celebrate the gift of water, letting it rinse your face and breathing in the moist air. Notice the scents of rain. If it's hot, find a patch of sun and bask like a lizard. If it's breezy, smell the wind like a horse or a dog.
• If you have kids in the city, join the bear hunt. (Grown ups might like this too.)

2. If time is beginning to lose its meaning, and you're struggling to keep a sense of what day it is, hook into planetary time:

• If you're a morning person, get up just before daybreak and sit on your balcony or your front step or just by an open window, and watch the light return to the world. Try to feel into the way the planet is spinning toward the sun. What is it like to be up before the human world gets going? Can you hear birds? What other sounds do you notice as the morning progresses? As you transition into day, let your body stretch and ease into activity. How does the rest of your day feel after this gentle start?
• If you're a night owl, try consciously feeling into nightfall. Find a spot on your balcony, on your front step, or even sitting inside by an open window--anywhere where there is not much artificial light once night falls. Go there just before sunset, when there's still light in the sky, but it's dusky. Sit down and get quiet. Wait for night to fall. (If you're doing this outside, make sure you do it in a place where you'll be safe.) As the dark comes, notice how you feel. Is it scary? What is scary? What animal and bird sounds can you hear? How does the temperature change as it gets dark? What is it like to experience the world going into night? Did you get bored? What's it like to leave your sitting spot and turn on the light? Are you in a hurry to get back to the lit world? Did you want to stay in the dark? How was it to be alone in the dark?

3. If you can't get out to a green space, try growing some plants at home. Even if your budget is low or your garden centre is closed, you can still grow plants in potting soil, or even just a jar of water:

• Grow plants from seeds you already have in your fridge or store cupboard. Plant pips from lemons or oranges. Plant a ginger root.
• If you have no soil, you can still grow plants. Grow a sweet potato vine, or start an avocado. Grow cuttings in bottles and jars of water.
• Kids can have fun growing plants from vegetable scraps, using carrot tops or the ends of lettuces and celery.
• How experimental do you feel? If you have a hot and sunny corner, you can try growing chillies from the seeds in dried chillies. Or try sprouting different beans out of soup mix, or seeds from bird seed and hamster food, and see what comes up.

4. Meditate on the plants in your cup of tea:

• For best results, choose tea that is made of just one plant, such as peppermint, or chamomile, or just plain green or black tea. Or raid your kitchen herbs and make thyme tea. As your tea steeps, look up the plant online, so you can see what it looks like when it's growing. Smell the scent rising off your cup. Feel into where this tea came from: from growing aromatic plants, that were picked and dried and packaged. Look up the medicinal properties of the plant, and enjoy imagining its gentle influence on you.

Did you find the second week of shelter-in-place harder than the first? If so, you're not alone. Many of us have felt sad, lonely, bored, trapped and discouraged this week. Take heart--that's normal. We're all still adjusting. This is a long-haul thing. But the preliminary data seems to be showing that it's working: we're flattening the curve, together. Yay for us.

Remember, all self-helpy web articles to the contrary, you don't have to use this time productively. Sure, it's a great chance to read all the Penguin modern classics, practice the violin and cook gourmet recipes from your store cupboard. But if all you can manage is to answer some email and take a nap some days, then that's fine too.

Every day is different. I cut myself some slack when I feel sad or overwhelmed, because who knows how I'll feel the next day? A nap helps. A cup of tea helps. A breath of fresh air helps. Small things. Be kind to your good self. Try not to worry. Below are some specific resources:

• If you are trapped at home with someone who is being mean to you, here is the National Domestic Abuse hotline: 800-799-7233
  
• For those of you who aren't sleeping well, here are some good resources for sleep, including a guided sleep meditation.
  
• Here is some nice, sensible dietary advice about foods that may help with depression and anxiety.
  
• For activists stymied by being at home, look here for a lot of ideas about how to be useful and influential as well as safe.
  
• Look here for a lot of general shelter-in-place-related mental health resources, including many related to children and families, as well as how to talk to children about what is happening.
  
• If you are battling anxiety, try some DBT distress tolerance skills--they're simple and they work.
  
• For anyone really needing exercise, there's a lot out there, from high intensity to online yoga.
  
• If you're really worried about money, turn and face it: look at your bank account, make a budget, draw up a list of your resources. Think about who has your back if the worst happens. Make a plan Z. Investigate unemployment benefit, rental assistance, mortgage relief, sick time--resources are being put in place to help you.
  
• Finally, for those of you who are worried about putting on weight from comfort-eating COVID snacks and staying away from the gym, I'm calling that "COVID curviness" will be hella hot once people can date again.
  

The practice
It's so easy to get into a rut: get up, go to work, come home, eat, zone out in front of a screen or party at the weekend, go to bed. Repeat. Then we wonder why life has lost its spark.

You don't have to plan a round-the-world trip to discover new things. Make a list of small things you'd like to try, just for the heck of it. That drawing class you always wondered about taking? Sign up! Never seen a movie all by yourself? Try it! If you like it, maybe you try more. If you don't, then try something else.

One woman decided to sample a new fruit every week. By the end of the summer she had tasted star fruit, pommelo, kiwis, pluots, goji berries, mulberries, lychees, passion fruit, nectarines, white and yellow peaches, and mangoes. A man decided to explore local hiking trails, all by himself, with a camera. Someone else decided to sign up for a Spanish course at her local community college. It took an effort, but they all said it was worth it.

The theory
We used to think that brain development slowed and stopped by middle age, but scientists now know that brain development continues while you're learning. As long as you're learning, your brain continues to densify, growing new synaptic connections. And learning new things also provides some protection against Alzheimer's.

The result
As well as being good for brain health, trying new things can also change who you think you are. It can give you confidence and a sense of pride. After all, you dared to do something new. You got out of your comfort zone and expanded your repertoire.

Trying new things can lead to new skills, new passions, new friends, and a richer appreciation of what the world has to offer you. Start small, and see where it goes...

The practice
Sometimes a funk seems to descend from nowhere, and any amount of positive thinking and self encouragement just doesn't seem to pull you out of it. It could be that you actually need to rest instead of doing anything, or it could be that you need to do that thing you've been avoiding (paying the bills, or calling your Mom), or it could be...well...that you just need to get off your butt and throw off this funk! But it's easier said than done. So, how?

Here are some ideas*:
- rinse your hands and splash your face with cold water
- take a shower alternating hot and cold water
- suck a sharp peppermint, such as an Altoid
- jump up and down, or walk briskly for a few minutes, or do a few of your favourite yoga poses
- put a few drops of some essential oil on a cloth and waft it about so you smell it in the air (try rosemary, or eucalyptus)
- set a timer, lie down and close your eyes for a few minutes
- drink some cool water
- dance for five minutes.

The theory
In NLP they say, "You can't think your way into a new way of acting, but you can act your way into a new way of thinking". These are ways into that. Instead of sitting there trying to change your thoughts, try changing state instead.

The result
All of these ideas are ways of changing your physiology, with the idea that when you change your physical state, your feeling state will follow. At the very least, they may provide a brief gap in the funk, which you can take advantage of to do something else that you know will help, such as picking up the phone to call a friend.

*As always, do these in a safe way, and check with your doctor if you're in any doubt about any of them.

The practice
If trying to relax (or meditate) makes you more, rather than less, antsy, try this alternative, which will probably work much better for helping you calm down: mindfully and gently tense groups of muscles, until they feel pleasantly tired, and release. Feel into the muscles and do it consciously and carefully. This is not progressive muscle relaxation, nor is it aerobics. You are not trying to relax, or to raise your heart rate.

For example, sitting in a chair, gently press your feet on the ground till you can feel your thighs working. Or with your arms folded, gently press the underneath arm against the holding arm, to feel the resistance. Experiment to find other gentle tensing/stretching movements that feel pleasant and leave your body feeling less tense.

The theory
This comes from 'The Body Remembers', a fabulous book on somatics of trauma and how to treat it, based on Somatic Experiencing. The author, Babette Rothschild, explains that people with trauma and anxiety can have problems with traditional relaxation and meditation techniques because these make their anxiety worse, rather than better. So she suggests this instead. The idea is to be gentle, and tense just enough, and just long enough, for the muscles to be pleasantly tired afterward, which in turn does induce a relaxing, pleasant feeling. The idea is not to raise your heart-rate, or stress your body in any way.

The result
This really does work. After gently tensing and holding the muscles, your body feels calmer and pleasantly so. Try it and see. Remember: effort is not the key; be gentle and tense just enough, no more.