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When you have chronic pain or are expecting to have a surgery that requires a lot of rest often you spend a lot of time in bed. Surgery recovereries sometimes can leave you bed bound for weeks and although tv marathons are a good option at first eventually it gets and you get bored of it. If you are sick with the common cold marathoning your favorite show is probably okay because most sicknesses you are not down for more than two week but with surgery recovery it’s different. Some people think that sitting in bed and marathoning their favorite shows all day is like dream but trust me when I say this that after about two weeks of watching television you will be begging to do anything else! I have had a lot of surgeries throughout my life to manage my disability and do watch a lot of tv when my pain is at it’s highest but after a while I don’t care how many subscriptions I have available to me I am not entertained by it. If you are stuck in bed entertaining can be a struggle because there is only so much you can do that doesn’t require moving. In this post, I am going to talk about how I entertain myself when I am on bed rest.
Color– There are a lot of great coloring options for both children and adults and it’s a great activity if you are on bed rest because it’s not super messy unless you want to paint but for the most part it’s not. I have a lot of coloring books and you won’t find me using them on a regular basis unless I a recovering from surgery and am desperate for any activity that is not Netflix. There are a lot of coloring books and even coloring apps which I prefer because I am a perfectionist and often find myself throwing away a lot of paper when I make a mistake but with an app, it’s easy to just undo it! Coloring is a great activity not only for people who are recovering from surgery and not allowed to get out of bed but also for those experiencing high pain and can’t tolerate screens well because there is something for everyone!
Listen to a motivating podcast– When you are stuck in bed it is pretty common to struggle with depression and start to go crazy because even if you are no stranger to bed rest it is still hard on your mental health. I always struggle with depression after surgery which I do come back from after my life becomes more normal but for the first few weeks or months I am a little sad and in a low mood. During surgery recoveries, I have found that listening to motivating podcasts helps keep me in the right mindset so I don’t become overly negative. I have social anxiety and am an introvert at heart and find no joy in talking into a camera but I know some people don’t mind it. If you have a different personality than I do and don’t feel uncomfortable talking into a camera it might be a good idea to start a podcast because all you need is a cellphone and possibly a microphone!
Puzzles- I am not the type of person that you will find doing a puzzle on a regular basis because I don’t have the patience to sit and solve a puzzle that I can’t find the solution to in twenty minutes. When I am stuck in bed I consider trying a puzzle because it doesn’t take up a lot of space and there are so many different options to choose from. There are jigsaw puzzles, tangrams and you can even download a challenging puzzle app to your phone which is what I prefer that will cost little to nothing so you have endless opportunity!
Learn a Language– As a blogger sometimes you get so busy with creating content and social media posts that you don’t have a lot of time for extra time for other hobbies. I have been wanting to learn sign language and have been slowly picking at it but I have not had a lot of extra time to really focus on it because a blog requires a lot of maintenance which takes up any free time you may have had. When you are stuck in bed you may have more free time because often you can’t work as easily so there is no better time than to learn another language and become bilingual!
Call a friend- If you are recovering from surgery your friends and family are probably going to worry and want updates on your health. Give your friends a call or FaceTime them because who needs an excuse to have a long chat with their friends even if it’s under unfortunate circumstances! Everyone has their own way in which they choose to break bad news to their friends and I am not going to tell you that your way is the right or wrong way but I will say that your friends should not find out about your health struggles through your Instagram unless that is the only way you can be contacted. It’s important to update your social media followers about your health but your real-life friends should be more of a priority because if they are at the same level it will affect relationships.
Start a blog- Blogging is one of those careers that you can still do if you are stuck in bed and it can still be done just as effectively as if you were sitting at a desk. Some people may prefer to write blog posts on a computer because it is much faster and will take much longer if we’re doing it from a cellphone but if that was not a choice it can be done on either device because all you need to write a blog post is an Internet connection. If I am having surgery sometimes I take a few weeks off depending on how major the surgery was and how bad my pain is because it’s not worth sacrificing quality over quantity but I don’t totally give up on blogging during my entire recovery! Many disabled and chronically ill people start a blog because it takes several hours to days to create one and is a great time killier!
Read– There are so many interesting things on the Internet that you can read and real books you can buy if people still do that that! When you are a content creator reading is part of your job so if you are not in the mental place to create your own content read some from others because supporting your fellow bloggers is just as important as writing posts. There are billions of blogs that currently exist and new ones are being created every single day and even if you read blog posts all day long for the next five years you still wouldn’t be able to read them all and there would still be tons that you haven’t discovered yet. If you don’t blog that is okay because there are tons of apps or acutal books that you could choose from and the possibilities are endless! The only difference between blogs and actual books is that a lot of books you have to buy whereas blogs won’t usually cost you money but both are great options so do whatever best fits your needs!
If you are stuck in bed bingeing your favorite tv show a good idea because it doesn’t require much effort but after a while, it’s not entertaining anymore and when you start to get bored that is when depression kicks in. People that say sitting in bed all day watching television is like a dream come true clearly have never been in a situation where that was all they could do for a month because if you had you would quickly learn that it’s not as amazing as you think it is. I started looking for other activities for when I am recovering from surgery because although I probably will watch a lot of tv I won’t want to be limited to just that. Some people complain about not ever having time to relax but when you are on bedrest the opposite is true and you want to do anything that requires movement. Bedrest is necessary for some people to get better but bingeing your favorite shows constantly is not as amazing as you think it is and if you strongly believe it’s the best thing ever, I challenge you to do it for a month! Depression is inevitable when you are on bed rest because there is only so much you can do while being stuck in bed, but it won’t be as bad if you don’t limit yourself to just one thing. How do you entertain yourself when you are on bed rest?
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