Top 5 things to do whilst on bed rest

As I’ve mentioned before, a week of no work and chilling is fun…… but actual bed rest is pretty dull. This is especially the case when you are used to being busy and important and are suddenly reduced to being quiet and useless….I feel your pain.

It is important to try to keep some kind of schedule. If you can, get up, get dressed and start your day, even if your day is going to be spent in bed or on the couch.

Set yourself a task for the day. Even if that task is to catch up with your emails or to read a chapter of a book. Having even a small task allows you to get to the end of the day feeling like you’ve achieved something at least.

So here are my top 5 things that I have decided to do whilst on bed rest.

1. Learn a Language

I have recently signed up to Rosetta Stone’s online French course. The lessons are generally an hour long and you can concentrate on particular areas you wish to improve upon, such as writing, grammar or pronunciation. I like that the lessons are pretty short and I try to do 1 hour a day. It makes me feel like I am keeping my brain ticking over and if I manage to do complete the course I will hopefully gain a new skill.

It is not a cheap option and if you are on a budget then you could try to teach yourself with old text books etc. There are also cheaper alternative online courses available.

2.   Sewing & getting creative

As you will have seen from my Blog, I have recently taken up sewing. I bought myself a basic sewing machine from John Lewis and after taking a while to figure it all out I am now pretty proficient in making pillow cases and anything else that involves a straight line. Sewing has allowed me to ‘kill’ quite a few days. It has also allowed me to fill my house with cushions and curtains and I can look at them and feel proud that I made them. I expect I will spend less time sat on the sewing machine as I progress through my pregnancy as it involves sitting up and using the foot pedal. An alternative is to do some hand sewing. I plan to make some baby toys and also a patchwork quilt by hand, I figure I can lounge in bed and hand sew fairly easily.

I love being creative and I have enjoyed having the time to indulge my creative side. I have lots of creative plans, I plan to go online and produce some Photobox albums for our honeymoon photos, make a memory book for our little boy and do some drawings for bump’s bedroom. All of which I can do from bed.  Sign up to my Blog as I will update it once I have done all of  these things.

3.  Reading

This is quite an obvious one. To make it more interesting, ask 5 of your friends or family to recommend their favourite book and start with those. It will open you up to books you wouldn’t ordinarily have considered reading. I have enjoyed book club for this very reason, see my book reviews here.

I used to love reading but find it hard to concentrate at the moment, my mind tends to wander a lot. I have therefore put myself on a bit of a schedule, I will set myself a target of e.g. 25 pages/a chapter a day. Having a bit of a schedule is a good thing whilst on bed rest and setting yourself small targets each day means you will finish the day feeling like you’ve achieved something, even if its not much compared to your pre-bed rest achievements!

4.  Writing

I do not consider myself a ‘writer’ but I do really enjoy writing. I am generally a perfectionist but with writing I like to just go for it. I don’t draft and redraft my work. It is more of a stream of consciousness. I think this is me rebelling against the perfection that is required when drafting documents as a lawyer!

Writing whilst on bed rest is a great option as, if you’re home alone , you don’t get much chance to talk during the day and so writing is a way of expressing yourself and it can also be very therapeutic.

I have spent a fair bit of time keeping a Blog and putting articles onto my website. I also send a lot of emails to family and friends. I have found writing about our loss on forums and groups and to some family and friends quite therapeutic and often think about keeping a diary. There are lots of opportunities to write and if you have the material, then you could write a short story, even if it is just for you.

5.  Television

Again, maybe an obvious one. However, try to control what you watch so that you don’t find yourself mindlessly working your way through box set after box set. I signed myself up to Netflix and also use my parent’s Sky Go package. I particularly like Netflix as it has a lot of documentaries on it. I like to watch those as it gives me an opportunity to learn something new and so it feels much less mindless. Don’t get me wrong, box sets are great too and I often have re-runs on whilst I am doing other things, like sewing or writing for background noise.

I have asked friends to recommend box sets to me and am trying to chose a mixture of chilled out and easy programmes to more intellectual stuff.

Also, if you’re lucky a major sporting event may be on that you can follow religiously. I am planning to watch a fair bit of Wimbledon over the Summer and hope to be a tennis expert by the end of it!

Good luck! x