As everyone adapts to a new way of living, whether that be working from home, socialising IRL or taking classes online, it’s important to look after your mental and physical health and still engage in fun activities.

Here are some activities to keep you in a good state of mind during the quarantine.

Mental Health

Calm

A great app to help you meditate, relax and get to sleep. 30-day free trial available here.

Headspace

Another highly-regarded guided meditation app. Download here.

Anxiety & Body image issues resources

This time at home with no access to gyms and no routine and the feeling of food insecurity can feel frightening to a lot of people with a history of food and body image issues.

Obviously this is no replacement for therapy, but if you’re feeling anxious, a lot of folks in that space on Instagram are also providing advice on how to get through this particularly difficult time.

Food Psych

A weekly show dedicated to helping you make peace with food and break free from diet culture. Subscribe.

Instagram

Feel you insta with some great voices such as @bodyposipanda, @chr1styharrison, @scotteeisfat, @chublin_dublin.

Coronavirus Anxiety Toolkit

Resources for anxiety and your mental health in a global climate of uncertainty are available here.

Workouts

All of the following are free but if you can donate you are encouraged to do so.

The Space Between

The Space Between are offering all of their classes through live streaming site Zoom. For the month of March, classes are free, booking is required.

Book Now

Boho Beautiful

Boho Beautiful is a YouTube channel run by two yogis. All of their videos are available on YouTube but their exclusive full-length video library of Yoga/fitness classes, tutorials and more are available on Patreon

Down Dog

In light of the COVID-19 situation worldwide, Down Dog is providing all of their apps free of charge until April 1.

Down Dog provides a range of apps from Yoga for Beginners to high-intensity training intervals (HIIT). See downdogapp.com for more.

Big Fit Girl App

These body-positive fitness classes offer a six week online fitness program for unleashing your inner athlete. A 30-day free trial is available when you sign up via their website or app.

Couch to 5k

Couch to 5k is a running plan designed to get complete beginners from couch potato to running 5k (or 30 minutes) in nine weeks. Get the app here.

Dance Church

Dance church streams every Sunday at 5pm GMT and dancers and non-dancers of all ages, dancing, jumping, laughing, singing, sweating joyfully for almost 90 minutes straight to music by Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Cher. Sign up here.

Fly Dance Studio Dublin

Fly Dance Studio Dublin are running live classes on Instagram Live with special guests such as Zac Milne. Follow them here.

Movies and TV Shows

We have curated some of the best LGBT+ movies and TV shows here.

A Chrome extension Netflix Party lets you watch Netflix remotely with friends. It synchronises video playback and adds group chat.

One particularly popular virtual party is the brainchild of Irish comedian Alison Spittle – “covideo parties”.

Spittle makes a poll on Twitter and asks people to choose a film available on Netflix. When the votes are cast, the Covideo party commences as everyone presses play on the film at 9pm sharp and watches the film collectively.

Twitter users can follow the #CovideoParty hashtag to enjoy virtual chats and jokes about the film, share photos of their snacks, and even photos of them dressed up as characters from the film.

Virtual Experiences

Metropolitan Opera

In an effort to continue providing opera to its audience members, the Met Opera will host “Nightly Met Opera Streams” on its official website to audiences worldwide. See the full schedule here.

Guggenheim Museum, New York

With Google Street View, you can visit the iconic Guggenheim Museum in New York through your browser. There are many famous landmarks around the world that can be explored on Google Street View here.

IMMA

IMMA is home to the National Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, with over 3,500 artworks by Irish and International artist which can be explored online.

Virtual Concerts

Christine and the Queens is planning on doing daily streams on her Instagram during the quarantine. Indigo Girls are doing a live stream on Facebook at 10 pm this evening.

Irish Drag Queen Nora Hope is one of those who have set up Queerona Time – a Drag Stream to bring together queer artists as a way of offering helpful tutorials and keeping the show going.

Pet Webcams

For dog lovers, check out Dog Bless You and Dogs Trust Ireland who do a live puppy cam every Friday.

The LA Kitten Rescue Sanctuary have a live stream here and Kitten Academy are live on YouTube.

If you vibe with penguins, pandas, monkeys, or owls, San Diego Zoos live cams are a must.

Books

Join your local public library which is free to everyone. While libraries are closed due to Coronavirus (COVID-19), you do not need to finalise your application in the library before being able to use online services.

The online service offers eBooks, online learning courses, audiobooks and more. Need inspiration? Here’s a list of some of the best queer books for young readers.

Podcasts

Check out some of the best Podcasts here. The amazing folks over at Sissy That Pod are running a Drag Race season 12 Fantasy League over on Facebook. Join in here.