Coloring Diary

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BEFORE

It wasn’t so very long ago that our lives were so hectic we didn’t have time to be bored or complain we had nothing to do. But if you are now locked down, off work, or school, and stuck indoors then the chances are that you are as bored af and looking for something that can keep you or your bored monkeys occupied. So, what can you do when you are bored bored bored and maybe don’t have much money to spend?

Online Games and Puzzles

Well, one option is to play online games, either on the computer or as an app on your phone but you may already have found this out for yourself! There are literally hundreds of sites for playing games and many are free. For phone apps these can be found in versions of Playstore. The choice of games that you can play for free online is huge. There are a number of websites that offer a variety of different types for you to choose from, including shoot’em ups, war games, casino type games, space invaders type games and many more. Other free online games are classed as puzzles and often involve some skill. These include modern versions of Tetris style games, the ever-popular Sudoku number puzzle, word search games, anagrams and crosswords. There are always new games to discover that involve different levels, maybe revolving around a quest for hidden treasure or other mystery. These can be really addictive! Many classic card and board games are now available to play as free online versions too. These range from a solo game of solitaire to a game of Scrabble against other opponents.

Many of the websites organise tournaments where you can play against friends or others online. Some of the most popular involve word games or role-playing shoot-‘em-up style ones. These are similar to those designed for games consoles and can have extremely realistic graphics. The only problem that you may have with some of these is that the quality of the game depends heavily on your Internet connection speed. Of course, you should always be aware that some of these sites may have communication facilities and some of these may have some undesirable characters on them, so beware if allowing young people to play on them.

Why Playing Games Online Can Be Good For You

Certain online games can be very good for your IQ. By increasing your vocabulary, memory and improving your analytical, critical thinking and spatial skills it shouldn’t be of surprise that you have benefited to the point of increasing your IQ also known as Intelligence Quotient. A research paper from the University of Michigan says you could possibly increase your IQ by four points if you spend as little as 25 minutes daily with puzzles!

Exercising your brain in the areas of memory retention and problem solving will help you delay dementia and Alzheimer’s. Several studies show that exercising your mind through puzzles and any other problem-solving activities could help you reduce the amount of brain cell damage that eventually leads to Alzheimer’s. It does so by stimulating the healthy growth of fresh nerve cells and neurons and by strengthening their connections also known as dendrites. So even if you don’t care about raising your IQ, (maybe it’s high enough already) preventing such illnesses is in your best interests and the research studies show there is a direct correlation between the number of years a person has played puzzles with the lower probability of someone developing Alzheimer’s. Start soon and make it a part of your life to play puzzles so that you protect your brain!

Want More Things To Beat Boredom?

Offline Games And Puzzles

Of things to do when you’re bored in class, playing online games on your phone is not one! of course, if you’re being home schooled or off school because of lockdown, it MIGHT be possible to get away with it but you also might be told to get OFF your phone and to start doing sonething constructive.

If you are able to print out pages, you can find lots of coloring pages and puzzles that can be completed off line. There are also journal pages, word games, crosswords and even maths puzzles you can find to do. Some need two people, so you can make this a family activity in lockdown and play with or against your partner or other person. These kinds of paper games include hangman, boxes, tic tac toe and battleships. All of these are paper games that people have played for many, many years. Your grandparents may even be able to teach you to play or even beat you at them for a while. Hangman is good for improving spelling and also for understanding the structure of words because you soon realise which letters go together. Hangman is also a good strategy game because you learn how best to play it. (For example, some letters in the English language, such as “e”, “a” and “t” appear more often than others, so it’s a good strategy to guess these first.)

Jigsaw puzzles or puzzle toys are another option for beating boredom. While small children often have board jigsaws to complete, with single pieces to fit into a shaped tray, puzzles for adults can range to as many as 2,000 pieces and the options for completing can be simple (lots of different colors, so it’s easy to see which pieces fit where) to puzzles with large sections of a single color, making completion much more complex. You may have jigsaw puzzles sitting around never used: now might be a good time to open them. It is also possible, though pricey, to have a jigsaw puzzle made for you using your own photograph or design.

Reading And Radio

Naturally, reading is always a good option. A good book can be enjoyed more than once, and even the most devoted bookworm will have classics they’ve not yet gotten around to reading. Books can teach, illuminate, distract, entertain, inspire, enlighten, compare and contrast. You can discover things that go together you’d never have thought of, like the way New Orleans links Zombies and Pirates. There are many downloadable book options for free, especially during lockdown and if you have a Kindle or other electronic book reader, there are often special offers from authors to read chapters or even whole books for free. Of course, they hope you will buy their other books or give them a good review.

Another option for in-place boredom beating is the radio. There is a variety of music and news available. You can simply veg out while listening to whatever music is out there, listen to the news and commentary channels for enlightenment or to find out what the other side is thinking, and you can find a show on some subject you care about like cooking, investing, car care or almost anything else. The radio has often been thought of as catering to the bored housewife syndrome, although that term came from an academic paper written over 50 years ago on the intelligent housewife. The radio allows you to listen, while moving about or working, as it doesn’t need you to sit still and watch.

Watch TV

If you want to watch the TV for a while, you could always find a hobby to do that allows you to watch in between working at your hobby, for example, many people knit or crochet while watching a program or a film. You can also get fit while watching TV. Many gyms and personal trainers have put their programs online for free during lockdown. You can learn Yoga, Pilates, complete a cardio workout or if you really are bored, line dance.

Preparing For Life Afterwards

Do you do this when your bored? Have you tried coloring? Writing a Journal? Completing a diary, learning or improving a language, building a website? These are all constructive uses of time, rather than eating mindlessly, drinking, doing drugs or sleeping 23 hours out of 24. Combine two of these by creating your own coloring diary.

If you have been eating a lot, you can either get out of the kitchen and away from temptation or get checking the internet or old books for healthy recipes that you could create with what is available. Alternatively you could check out a diet that you think you could do. Dieting can be difficult when you can’t get away from the kitchen or have a lot of time on your hands, however, some diets can be easier to stick to than others and some diets work better for one person than another. Drink or drug-taking may be because of addiction or could be due to boredom. If you can find something to reduce your boredom, you could reduce your use of these. Sleeping for many hours can be a sign of depression. Again, finding something constructive to do could help and there are coloring books, journals and workbooks that can all help you find something to do that you LIKE doing, stop being bored or have something you can use after lockdown.

More to come on overcoming boredom soon….