 We have been isolating for almost three months now, and it's beginning to wear on everyone. My lockdown plan for doing a lot of writing has come to nothing, but I am doing a lot of baking to satisfy my sweet tooth. The boredom is rearing its head. During this COVID quarantine, we are stressing our homes and the limitations of our homes are stressing us. Overnight, three months ago, overnight you had to set up a home office, facilitate homeschooling, do home daycare, set up a family decontamination center and cook three meals a day from an empty pantry and empty store shelves. So what you threw together three months ago is probably not working anymore. So tonight we're gonna be talking about some modifications that you can make in your own home that can help to help to make your house meet your new challenges and your needs as we continue with this quarantine time. So home is our sanctuary, but things have changed. So what can we do to make our home a real sanctuary for us? Well, one thing is having a modicum of organization. I'm not talking Marie Kondo perfection, but having spaces where things can be placed, where things can be found. Having a mudroom with some sense of this is where things go can make a big difference. Also have things around you that remind you of the things that you really love and treasure. And don't forget a sense of whimsy as a way of helping you feel welcome in your own home. So home is where we connect with others. Now we're being able to, we're being asked to, excuse me, to social distance. And I have a few words about that. Social distancing as everybody's talking about it is six feet apart. There's nothing social about social distancing. It's a real strain. So I prefer to call this safety distancing because this is what feels normal. This is what we're intuitively doing. If we want to chat with somebody, we get closer to them. We may gather in a circle. It's easier to see people's expressions, to make eye contact and to hear each other. But this is what we're being asked to do right now. And it just doesn't feel right. So about 50 years ago, environmental psychologists, which is the umbrella term for architectural psychology, interior psychology, studied how people distance themselves or not from each other with various kinds of interactions. And what they discovered was that they could measure various ranges or distances or zones that people used. So one of them was what would be called intimate distance. And that is literally from skin to skin to about 18 inches or arms length apart. This is for very intimate interactions where you can look deeply into someone's eyes. You can hear it a whisper. So this is a very powerful place. Then there's personal distance, which is family interaction, friend interaction, which is 18 inches to a farthest reach of four feet. It's easy to hear people. It's easy to see their faces and make eye contact. Then there's what's called social distance, which is anywhere from four feet to 12 feet apart. And we have to work a little bit harder to see another person's eyes at that distance. You have to work harder to project your voice to be heard. And then there's something called public distance, which is for very formal occasions. So what's happening now is outside we're being asked to do this when we want to do this. The irony is that a lot of people have set up their homes so that they have unconsciously set up social distancing in the spaces where their family and friends gather in their living rooms and family rooms. So let's talk about that some more. Listening is an act of love. Regular eye contact is essential for human bonding. So what can we do with the arrangement of our home that supports these two key things for connecting with each other? Seating arrangement is a big thing that makes a difference there. And it's actually fairly easy to do some fine tuning to improve this. So something like this where people are sitting in a circle, they're not too far apart. It's easy to see everyone. It's easy to see people's faces. It's easy to make eye contact. It's easy to hear. Something like this is really ideal. It could be in a circle. It could be an L configuration or a U configuration. They all count. But unfortunately, people are in the habit of spreading out their furniture to fill the room which inadvertently sabotages how people feel in that space and how they're able to communicate. Here we see seating that is so far apart. This is the far range of social distance. So this is what decorators call shouting distance. You literally have to raise your voice, project your voice to be able to be heard and trying to have a sustained intimate or personal conversation at that level ends up being very fatiguing and people just stop. So something like this inadvertently sabotages interpersonal connection. This can also happen in a smaller space where we see the people again intuitively or reflexively put their furniture up against the walls and the lighting in this room has been placed in the corners away from where people are actually sitting. So let's take a look at the same room with the same furniture with things rearranged a bit. So here we see the furniture pulled away from the walls clustered together into a more intimate, more comfortable seating arrangement. The lamps have been pulled away from the corners so they illuminate people's faces and they illuminate the activity or gathering center here. So I'm gonna go over that one again because it's really amazing how powerful. Whoops, it's not working. Okay, can't go back. Let's try this. Nope, sorry. Okay, we're just going forward. Okay, so this can also be used in larger spaces. Here the furniture has been pulled away from the edges of the room and centered on this area rug. Here we have a nice conversational L. The area rug serves as kind of like an anchor and it makes the space more intimate. This chair in the corner is kind of out of this, out of the conversational center. So I would consider this kind of a private corner chair rather than a conversational chair. Your kitchen is the heart of the home and that's the place where some real powerful connections can happen. Breaking bread together has whole extra levels of emotional connection connected with it. So use that. But the modern kitchen has given us a conundrum. Do we eat at the kitchen island or counter or do we eat at a table? So a lot of people envision this kind of gathering together at the kitchen island where everybody's kind of hanging out, it's relaxed, there's conversation, things like that. If this is what's happening for you while you're preparing dinner, please keep up the good work because this is fantastic. But the reality is usually more like this. People sitting in a row along one side of the kitchen counter or island and someone else standing on the other side and this presents two significant problems. When people are sitting in a row, it's very difficult to talk with someone else. It's hard to see someone, it's harder to hear someone, what you have to do is turn in your seat, twist your neck. So environmental psychologists have discovered that this is the least preferred seating for any configuration of people. The other thing is having a meal at a counter or an island. Usually someone, usually one of the parents is standing on the other side facilitating the meal. This puts that person in kind of a server role which is absolutely not what you wanna have for a family meal time. So what I encourage people to do is to have one meal a day gathered together at a table. And why a table? As you can see, it's a lot easier to make eye contact, to hear and see each other. And it's also more comfortable. Putting your feet on the floor is a lot more relaxing than perching them on the rung of a counter stool. Some of the fondest memories my brother and I have of growing up were of sitting around the family table and just talking, even after the meal was over, we would just talk and talk about various things. And it really was a profound time of connecting and sharing good times and laughter. Good lighting is really important to support eye contact and the connection that comes with it. So how do you light a table where people are gathered together? Well, two options are a pendant lamp or candles. Everyone has had the wonderful experience of being seated around a campfire. People, everyone's faces is illuminated, the darkness behind kind of draws people closer and together. And this is a wonderful chance for intimacy and connection just by the setting, facilitating that. So what you can do with the table is having a pendant light. You can see here, it's illuminating the table. It's also gonna be illuminating the people that sit here. What I would suggest with this elongated table is perhaps more than one pendant lamp so that everyone's faces are wonderfully illuminated. If that's not a possibility, then scattering candles around the table is a wonderful way of replicating the feeling of being at a campfire. Many of us are working from home. And this may be your dream office, but it's your boss's nightmare. Because the question is, how much work can you really do when you're working from home? So here we have, again, environmental psychologists have studied this and plotted this out. Here's performance or productivity, here's stimulation or what's going on in the background in either an office or a home. The ideal is a comfort zone, not too little, not too much. As is well known, the biggest complaint in the corporate open office is too much noise. People talking to each other, people talking on the phones. At home, that could be family conversations, the sound of kids playing, the sounds of appliances. So too much noise can definitely be a distraction wherever you're at. The other extreme is not enough stimulation. If you're working in a place that's pretty barren and doesn't have a lot going on, what they've found is that people end up getting bored and restless and it's harder for them to focus. So what you might wanna do is maybe add a little bit of music to your environment. And that might be just enough stimulation to help you to get to this comfort zone or sweet spot. Now there's several places that you may have choices for in your home for an office. One would be if you already have a designated home office or study, then you're set and ready to go. Another might be a guest room. Sometimes that's an overlooked space. Things can be moved around in there, bed moved aside, table or desk moved in, and that can provide a nice, private, quieter space in which to work. Basement or bonus room might be an option. I'm not a big fan of basements for work spaces because the energy tends to be a little bit low or the clutter in the space can be distracting. Dining room is a default place for a lot of people and an unused living room is sometimes an overlooked opportunity for people who have added on or have a large family room that's heavily used for gathering time with family and friends. The living room may be neglected and unused. I've suggested to a couple of clients that maybe they convert their living room into a home office and it's worked out excellently for both of them. The reality for a lot of us is that our home office may be in the bedroom and that creates some problems because it breaks down boundaries between our work life and our private life. And one way that that shows up is in difficulty sleeping. A lot of people during this quarantine period are saying that they're having difficulty sleeping. And if they're working in their sleeping space, that can be a contributing factor because what's happening is as you're trying to fall asleep, your subconscious is saying to you, why are you wasting your time trying to sleep? You should be at your desk, at your computer and being productive. So that kind of subtly sabotages your ability to sleep. So possible solutions to that might be placing a screen or a curtain between your desk or computer and where you're sleeping. Another possibility would be to take a lovely piece of fabric and laying it over the computer or your desk, almost like putting your desk, your work to sleep at the end of the workday. I had a client who used a hard copy appointment book and her routine was to mindfully close that appointment book at the end of her workday and for her that was the ritual that told her that work was over, it was now time for herself and her family. And I have a couple of suggestions about how to set up a home office to make it more comfortable and a more comfortable home office is a more efficient home office. So here we have someone that set up a workspace at home and we've got a big problem here. It's that the workspace is looking out a window and there's two big problems with that. One is distractions. The other is eye fatigue that's caused by your eyes adjusting between the brightness of the light coming through the window and the light that's on the computer screen. Now, no computer screen can ever be lighter than the light coming through a window, even on a cloudy day. So what's happening is the muscles in the eyes keep focusing back and forth and back and forth between these two degrees of light and pretty quickly your light eyes are gonna become tired and that can even lead to fatigue headaches which can totally sabotage your productivity. So my suggestion for this is to place your desk at right angles or perpendicular to a window. This way you still get natural light illuminating your work surface. It's easier to see your computer screen and you can still turn your head and glance out the window and get revived by looking at nature. The other one of the other concerns is working full-time on a laptop. Doing this at the local cafe or a coffee shop for a short bursts of work is fine but for long extended work this is really bad for your back and your neck and you'll be feeling it by the end of the day. So one of the solutions to that is getting a desk chair. Working at a kitchen chair or a dining room chair over the long haul just doesn't work. So a desk chair that is comfortable and adjustable is very helpful. It doesn't have to be a $1,000 status chair just something that works for you. Now there's a couple basic things about ergonomics that is gonna make a big difference for you. It's basically the height of the monitor, the placement for the keyboard and the height of the chair and adjusting these three things will get you to the point where you will have really good ergonomics. So one of the things that you would want to do is have the top of your computer monitor approximately eye level. This allows you to keep your head in a pretty much upright position and it's easier to just kind of scan down or read the screen from this position. And as you do so, your eyelids will come down and help prevent dry and tired eyes. The next is that you wanna have your elbows at approximately a 90 degree angle. So then that your wrist is at what they call a neutral position. This might mean that the keyboard is separate from your laptop or computer and is either higher or lower. Being a short person, I have to have my keyboard lower than the desktop and that works out fine. The other thing is having your knees at approximately 90 degree angle so your feet can sit flat on the floor. So basically monitor height, keyboard height and the height of your seat. If you can take care or adjust and play around with those three things that will give you really good ergonomics fairly simply. A lot of us are working in a multitasking space and usually that's the dining room. So if you've got enough room in your dining room to set up a separate table or desk over to the side, that's ideal. But you may not have enough room for that. So making some changes in how the dining room is set up may be helpful. Now this person converted an unused dining room into a homework, home office, craft area. Now aside from the decorative touches, the biggest and most effective change that she made was she converted this display cabinet into a storage unit. She took these serving pieces, stored them away and opened up the space so she could store home office supplies, school supplies, craft supplies and also the work associated with it so the table could be cleared at the end of the school day or the end of the work day. Having a dining room table that is cleared is such a powerful way of minimizing the chaos that's going around and decreasing the stress of having too much clutter in the house while so many activities are going on simultaneously within the four walls of your home. So if you've got a closet or a cabinet that you can stash your papers in, that's really good. If not, then maybe a tote or a plastic milk crate that you can tuck out of the way. One of the advantages of clearing the dining room table at the end of the school day, at the end of the work day is it gives you a minute as you're pulling your papers together to think about what you've done and what your priorities are for the next day. So basic things for a home office setup is desk perpendicular to the window, good lighting, basic ergonomics, physical or mental boundaries between work and personal time and fairly organized papers. Privacy is something we all need. It's an inherent need, even small children need it. Some people need it more than others and it's important to ask for it. Some people hesitate to ask for privacy for fear that people will take it as a personal affront that I don't wanna be around you or something similar to that. And it's just simply I need some space to collect my thoughts, to decompress, to check in with myself. So even though man caves and she-sheds are the chic way of going, the reality is most of us don't have that option. So what I encourage people to do is claim a private corner. It could be your favorite chair where you can go to relax, to read, to just simply veg out or take a quick nap. A nice thing to have with that chair is a good lamp. So you've got illumination for whatever you decide to do. It could be a table or desk so you could spread out papers or a project. It could be a workshop or craft room where you could go and focus on doing something that you enjoy. Kids need privacy too. Older kids need privacy for school time, for schoolwork. Even younger kids need privacy, sometimes to do something that requires a lot of focus, sometimes so they too can decompress from their day. If privacy is hard to get and noise in the home is a problem, then getting headphones can be very helpful. They can be regular headphones so you can plug into an audio conference or some information that you're getting through the internet or they could be noise-canceling headphones to just kind of cut down on the disturbing noise of an active household. And even kids can benefit from headphones. If you live with others and don't have a private place, you might need to signal your need for privacy. And one way of doing that is with an understanding that when you say put on a particular baseball cap, you're letting people know, I need my space, I love you, but just give me some space so I can catch my breath. It could be a baseball hat, it could be a particular t-shirt or sweatshirt or something similar. On the other hand, too much privacy can lead to a sense of isolation. And for people who live alone, this can be a real challenge. One of the things I encourage people to do is take care of themselves. Do for yourself what you would do for other people. And that can be as simple as using your best dinnerware when you're having a meal. It could be a simple meal, even something right from the microwave, but serving yourself as you would, your most favorite guest, is a way of taking care of yourself. Another thing is reaching out and being in contact with people. Now with all the latest technology, the big focus is on Zoom and Skype and FaceTime and all of that. And the reality is that nobody over the age of 18 looks good on a Zoom call. And sometimes seeing ourselves on the screen can be really distracted. We start thinking, oh my gosh, does my neck really look like that? Do not overlook the power of the human voice. Sometimes simply a phone call can be much more effective for connecting with somebody than doing a Zoom chat. So simply pick up the phone, relax the way we used to in the pre-modern tech days and relax in having a wonderful conversation with whoever you wanna reach out and connect with. Time has become a real challenge because we're at home seven days a week, almost 24 hours a day, time has begun to lose its meaning. And if you're like me, you have a hard time remembering what day of the week it is. Another thing is that our calendars are empty and we have nothing to look forward to, things that are markers in time. One thing I suggest to people is not getting sucked into watching news or listening to news 24 seven because that alone can increase your anxiety. I encourage people to tune into the news two, maybe three times a day, find out what's happening and then move on. Focus on other things. You'll find your blood pressure will thank you. Another thing is to start your day with reminders and setting up your space to support that. One thing I recommend to my clients is having things near their bed to remind me of the things they love most. So they can see it first thing when they wake up in the morning. So you might have a plant or some flowers or maybe a view of nature that reminds you of the beauty of nature. You might have a photo or a memento that reminds you of the people you love best or a vacation you enjoyed or family adventure that brings great memories to you. Psychologists are discovering that if you mindfully start your day with a positive mindset, that helps set the tone for the rest of the day. Doesn't guarantee no problems, but it helps you to handle them in a more resilient way. So having these mementos around can be a great way of helping you start your day in a positive mindset. And your day with a good night's sleep. A lot of people are saying on the internet that it's really hard for them to sleep during this time, whether it's part of the ongoing anxiety that we're all feeling or the fact that we're cooped up at home or that we're not getting enough exercise. So there's a couple of things that I suggest you consider. One is to follow the recommendation of turning off your electronics about an hour before you plan to go to sleep. There's a couple of reasons for that. One is that the light that's emitted from our electronic devices can be bright enough to hinder the brain's production of melatonin, which are as our natural sleep hormone. Our brains start producing this around nine o'clock at night, but if we've got all the lights in the house on, if we're staring into a bright screen, blue light, whatever kind of light is involved, it will hinder the production of this natural melatonin. The other thing is that things on computers are designed to entice us to click to the next screen, to hit that link, to hit that button to swipe for the next few. It's addictive. And before you know it, you've wasted two hours. So close down your electronics about an hour before you want to go to sleep. Another thing that can be calming and grounding is keeping a gratitude journal. Just a few things, one item, three items, they can be simple things to remind you of the simple pressures in life while our larger world has become restricted. You can finish your day by reading or by listening to music, things that you find calming, soothing and enjoyable. Another thing to help define time during our day is to do some mindful rituals. Ideally, this can be done between the end of the workday or the school day and dinner time. So one thing that you might wanna do is have candles on the table to make a meal time special. The meal may be something out of the microwave, but having candles on the table makes the meal time special. You can also join hands in a circle, you can have a minute of silence, you can share gratitudes that you are aware of for your day with the people. Social scientists have discovered that having a ritual, no matter how simple, before a meal, impacts how you perceive that meal, the food will taste better. So something as simple as this can be a way of gathering together. It can also be a way of creating a boundary and making your meal more enjoyable. I also suggest that you make family meals electronics free. We spend so much of our time on our electronic devices that having devices at the family table is going to totally undermine the efforts that you've put in to making eye contact, having time together, talking and listening. Sherry Turkle, the author of Rediscovering Conversation, says that they now know that simply having a cell phone on the table, not even talking about it, but simply having it there, is enough distraction to make it harder for people to focus on the conversation or what's going on around them. Because we've been programmed to respond to every little bing and Twitter and tweet. So one way to sweeten the deal about having people putting their electronic devices aside is having a charging station away from the table, maybe even in the next room. So people are reluctant to give up or their electronic devices, they can say to themselves, well, at least my phone, my whatever, is getting charged while I'm having my dinner. Okay, after dinner, this is the default mode for a lot of people just simply turning on the TV, not with anything in particular in mind, but just simply turning on the TV or diving into electronics in one form or another. Now one of the slogans of this quarantine period is together apart. Unfortunately, if you were doing too much with electronics, what we're experiencing is being alone together. So let's think about some alternatives. So maybe dust off some board games. There's a lot of great games that you may have in your closet. There's a lot of board games that have been invented. And the last several years, if you've got sharp vision, you've probably picked up on, there's a board game here called Pandemic. This was released eight years ago and it's gotten very good reviews. It's a cooperative role-playing game for two to four people. So you might wanna check that out for some other games. Maybe pick up a handicraft. You might have a project that got stalled or something you never had the chance to start or you might wanna try something new. I myself dusted off my sewing machine and finally made the covers for some accent pillows, which I'm now enjoying. Another thing you can do while you're doing something like that is either talk or maybe listen to an audio book, courtesy of the library in Libby or Hoopla. I've been enjoying Robert Gailbraith mystery right now. You can sort through family photos. This is frequently something that gets put on the back burner and definitely rediscover family memories and treasures. You might wanna spend some time researching your family tree that's certainly the kind of research you can do on the internet now or you might wanna relax and read. Read books that you enjoy. A lot of adults are reporting that they're reading a young adult or children's books such as Harry Potter or little women right now for just pure pleasure. I'm somebody who absolutely vowed that I could never find pleasure in reading on an electronic device. And lo and behold, I'm enjoying books on my tablet through the library's offering of Libby. So please check that out. Also nourish yourself. This is a time when we find ourselves maybe getting a little bit hungry more often or needing comfort foods. Take care of yourself that way. It's well known that carbohydrates help our brains produce serotonin which is our brain's anti-depressant natural hormone. So carbohydrates are okay right now. And if you're like me, you get hungry every three hours. So take care of yourself. If you choose to do electronic entertainment be mindful about it. Make an event, make it family night at the movies in your living room or family room. Get the popcorn going. Choose a specific movie that everyone's going to enjoy rather than random channel surfing or it could be a romantic dinner and a movie. It might be something that you've ordered in and then you retire to the living room, turn on the TV to see a specific movie with your glass of wine or your cup of tea and it's for you to enjoy with your partner. Weekends. Since we're at home seven days a week it's a great idea to try and make the weekends different. So one thing you might want to tackle a big project in the garden or somewhere in the house. You might try camping out in your backyard. It could either be just an afternoon of lazing around or you could do a full blown weekend camp out where you do the cooler and the portable grill and the kerosene lanterns and the sleeping bags and everybody has a great time. And sometimes these odd improvised things make for the greatest memories. You could also try some new activities on your own or with family or just be more relaxed. And that includes resting, getting a nap. You deserve it. Get outdoors. Nature is a healer. Just looking at this picture you're saying to yourself, I want to be there. Scientists have discovered people who were stressed. They showed them three videos being in rush hour traffic, pedestrian mall or looking at nature. Look at the dramatic and sustained drop in stress levels when people just looked at a nature video and imagine what it's like to experience the real thing. How much more powerful that is. So get outside. If you can work outside, if you can't maybe take a coffee break or have your lunch outside, relax outside. It might be having an afternoon treat or a relaxing meal and it doesn't have to be fancy. Find a cozy corner in your backyard or on your deck or maybe do your own home version of a campfire with a fire pit or something similar. Play. Play isn't just limited for kids. Running through the sprinklers, lots of fun. You remember that and it's not limited to kids. So get out those sprinklers and have some fun. Dust off some of those lawn games or do a DIY giant Jenga thing. This was made out of two by fours. That could be a lot of fun. Gardening, if you're a gardener, you know the bliss of gardening. So get your hands in the soil and revive and restore yourself. If you've got some little helpers or not so little helpers, maybe they would enjoy having their own little garden plot or a potted plant to take care of. Bring the outdoors indoors. If you don't have access to a private outdoor space, then place a chair by a window. If you don't have a view of a lake, then look at the sky. Bring plantings and joyors where you can enjoy them and see them. Get social. Now that the warm weather is here, we can go out and connect with friends and neighbors outside. So if you're lucky enough to have a porch, this is a start, but you need a little bit more. This is what I call the secret sauce of enjoying your time outside. And according to Linus, you need to have little tables with lemonade on it, warm nightlights, fireflies and crickets, soft music and a moon in the sky. Now you may not be able to choreograph the fireflies and crickets, but you can have the lemonade, you can have tea lights and you can have some soft music. And that makes being outside an extra special occasion for both you and for friends and family. So even though we want this, this is what's required of us. So if you build it, they will come, set up a space where people can drop by and be relaxed and be safe. Here's some people up in Buffalo a couple months ago and they did it on their street. They measured out the distance and everybody looks like they're having a great time. My sister in law told me about doing an impromptu driveway gathering. It was a bring your own chair, bring your own beverage event and the sheer delight of the impromptu quality of it just made for extra fun. So that's another option. So this is a trying time for all of us. We're coping with isolation, anxiety and boredom. Life is more challenging. We're figuring things out as we go along. Hang on to your sense of humor. We will come out the other side stronger, clearer and more generous with ourselves and others. In time, we will have good memories of the creative ways we responded to this challenge and how we pulled together. Thank you very much for listening and watching.