I believe the pandemic has brought a lifestyle change for everyone. On the bright side, people have been exploring more meaningful ways of spending time with themselves, such as finding new hobbies to try from home.  With an increased amount of time spent at home and the anxiety it brings, trying new hobbies during a pandemic has multiple benefits. It helps to relieve stress, eradicate boredom, learn something new, and is a means to connect with like-minded people even in times of social distancing.

In my opinion, the pandemic presents us with an opportunity to learn something new, enrich our lives, and be more productive by trying new hobbies. 

From yoga to exploring virtual reality, to cooking or starting a blog, after 9 months of pandemic I’ve realized that this has been one of the most productive times of my life.

The hobbies I recommend trying in this post are the hobbies I’ve personally tried from the four walls of my home during the pandemic. I feel they have enriched my life and broadened my horizons even at times when the whole world seemed to stop.

Related Reads:

How to Stay Motivated In The Post Pandemic Future

The New Normal: Getting Life In Order After Lockdown

 Disclaimer:  Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. As a participant in the Amazon Associate Program, I earn from qualifying purchases. This means If you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Learn From the Best With Masterclass

One of the first hobbies I tried at the onset of the pandemic that seemed perfect to do at home was to learn new skills on Masterclass.

Masterclass is an online educational platform that provides pre-recorded tutorials. It is done by experts in various fields such as culinary arts, photography, business, design, science, and technology, etc. These world-renowned personalities teach skills by sharing their stories and demonstrating their experiences in their respective fields.

You can perfect your culinary skills with Gordon Ramsey, master the art of makeup with Bobbie Brown, explore writing with Margaret Atwood, take up photography with Annie Leibovitz, or explore science with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Masterclass has a lot to offer to satisfy everyone’s curiosity.

Each Masterclass is about few hours and is recorded in short episodes of 10-15 minutes. The classes are typically not interactive; Though each session comes with PDF transcripts as well as exercise workbooks and assignments.

Masterclass is regularly updated with new courses. Currently, it costs $180 USD for an All-Access Pass in the form of an annual subscription, and you can get a 7-day free trial.

I personally watched and recommend Gordon Ramsey’s course for anyone who’d like to try cooking as a new hobby to try from home.  It’s okay, he doesn’t scream at you once.

Stretch Into a New Hobby With Yoga

I’ve always wanted to try yoga, but somehow never had the opportunity for it. Trying an online yoga course seemed to be a great choice for a new hobby that I can do from home during the pandemic at my own pace. 

Furthermore, yoga seemed to have a very positive effect on relieving stress, anxiety, and back pain caused by long hours of sitting at home.

What is Yoga?

There are many styles of yoga. Some take on a more meditative form, while others are more physically intense. Hatha Yoga is a great starting point for beginners that provides a good home workout. What all the yoga forms have in common is a tendency to focus on breathing. Challenging the body physically appropriated by a synchronized, mindful breathing is the key to achieving physical and spiritual strength and stamina. All this without the exhaustion that comes with exercising in the gym.

Comprehensive yoga practice can be equivalent to a workout in the gym. It focuses on muscular strength, physical endurance, cardiovascular flexibility, as well as weight loss.

Consistent yoga practice offers many health benefits: some of which are improved body strength, mental focus and clarity, stress and anxiety relief, weight loss, and minimizing the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

While searching for hobbies I can do at home during lockdown, I stumbled upon the “Yoga International” community. They offer a free month, which is enough to see if yoga is for you and if you are going to be persistent with it. At Yoga International they have many qualified yoga instructors who offer different styles of yoga classes, courses, programs, and articles.

What I like about this platform, and what is so helpful for yoga beginners, is that each time you are ready to start your practice you have the option to use filters that help refine your search.

Whether your goal is to relax, relieve muscle pain, build strength and stamina, calm down from anxiety and stress, improve mental clarity, or simply sleep better, you will be able to find the most appropriate yoga class in accordance with your level of experience, goals, and mood.

For example, you can choose from the most popular yoga styles: Hatha Yoga, Ashtanga, Acro Yoga, Guided Meditation, Breathing exercises, Yoga practice, etc. They include several levels: Beginner, Level 1,2 and 3, the option to choose an instructor, props as well as which body part you’d like to focus at a time. One of my friends wrote a comprehensive post on the positive impact yoga can have on your health.

Get one month for free with Yoga International.

After practicing yoga for about half a year, I am so glad I took up this hobby at the early onset of the pandemic. Not only is it helpful with building body strength, but it is also very effective in channeling stress and anxiety during these uncertain times. If you are also thinking of taking yoga as a hobby you can do from home, get your free month and see if you like it.

Photography

Photography has always been on my hobby bucket list. The thought of mastering the lighting parameters such as ISO, aperture, shutter speed always sounded a bit daunting to me. Though I thought I had found a shortcut when I got the new iPhone 11 which came with 3 cameras.

I took many photos that looked great on the phone. When I transferred them to my laptop and started photo editing, they just didn’t look as good. Professional cameras can be costly, but the investment is totally worth it. IPhone can’t replace the effect of the professional camera yet.

Mastering photography is the perfect hobby to try at home during the pandemic. There are so many resources available online for those who’d like to learn photography. The lengthy time in lockdown seemed to be the right moment to sit down and address some of the technical challenges that amateurs face.

Even if you’ve taken a lot of courses, watched videos, read books on photography, nothing will happen without practice. The pandemic and social distancing have led people to try out many new things at home. For example food & cocktail recipes, which can be a great opportunity to practice and perfect your photo shooting.

However, if you are still worried about the technicalities of using a professional camera and the time it takes to master them, there are quite a few easy options to make your photos look crystal sharp even though you’ve been taking them in the “auto mode”.

If you are taking indoor shoots, one thing that can immensely increase the quality of your photos is the lighting. Investing in an LED light bright/neon equipment, together with photography backgrounds and props can really make your photos stand out and look professional even though you’ve taken them in auto mode.

Another hurdle when it comes to photography is the post-editing process. It requires familiarity with photo editing software such as Photoshop. Fortunately, there are ways to edit your photos without it. You could buy photo presets on Etsy, which are essentially filters you can apply over your photos. They come in a package for numerous occasions: autumn, selfies, city, beach, winter, summer, and other tones. Also, the presets are available for both mobile and desktop.

Explore New Worlds in Virtual Reality

You may be stuck at home, but ours and other worlds can easily be made accessible through the miracle of modern technology.  Virtual Reality is quite an investment.  First, you’ll need a VR capable PC, and then of course you’ll need to purchase the VR set itself.  However, if you are open to splurge on the expense, VR is an amazing way to get over those lock-down blues. 

Unlike conventional gaming, VR has something to offer almost everyone.  There are games of course, but there are also fitness apps, tools for meditation, creative software, educational experiences, and programs to simulate everything from a quiet walk in the woods to a day at the amusement park.  Given its ability to make you think you’re anywhere but your own living room, Virtual Reality is an albeit expensive but great hobby to take up during the pandemic.

When purchasing any technology, it is always considered wise to invest as much as you can up front to ensure that your investment lasts for as long as possible. 

Right now, the top of the line looks to be the Valve Index 2. It boasts the unique ability to detect your exact finger position on the controllers and reflect it in game.  The Index set admittedly comes with a hefty price tag. The good news is that people wanting to get into the hobby have several less pricey options that would work great as an introductory set.  These include older models from Occulus such as the original Rift set and the Vive line from HTC.

Regardless of which set you go with, VR is a unique hobby that makes being stuck at home slightly more bearable.  It’s in its early stages, but the future of VR and its potential practical applications are too important and exciting to ignore.

Start Blogging

I started my blog during lockdown.  At the time I treated it as a hobby to try at home as I had so much free time. As time passed, I realized that blogging has a bit of a learning curve. After learning how blogging works and making some small investments that helped increase productivity, I think I’ve managed to turn my blogging hobby into a business idea.

 After just a few months of blogging, I’ve even earned a few commissions from affiliate links. Though this amount is not enough for me to retire yet, the possibility of how far I could take this quarantine hobby has motivated me to stick with it.

Starting a blog can literally be a 5-minute process. It is as simple as securing a domain name for your blog and choosing a web hosting service. That’s all it takes! Now you are ready to start writing your first post.

For better, quicker results, however, there are some other resources that I personally use and recommend for new bloggers. They can make your blog look awesome and help you monetize quickly.

Let me give you a short overview of what you might need when you are first starting off with blogging. Again, you won’t be needing these if you are just trying blogging and treat it as a hobby during pandemic.

The Divi Theme

To avoid looking like an amateur blogger, do not go with the free default WordPress theme. There are many paid themes available on the market. They come with opportunities for customization that will make your website look professional. I personally use and recommend the Divi theme. It comes with many options and it’s easy to customize even if you are a beginner. I managed to launch a website without contacting support once.

Web Legal Policies

In order to protect yourself from unwanted lawsuits, legal policies for your website are a must. This is self-descriptive, and you might start off with the free legal policies, though you will always be at risk. Especially when you join affiliate programs in order to monetize your blog. 

Yoast SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is super important in order for Google to display your content to the right audience. As a beginner, you probably won’t be very familiar with SEO, and neither was I. The Yoast plugin directs you through all the necessary steps. It is easy to follow even if you are a beginner. There is a free version as well as a premium one that comes with added benefits.

Canva

Images are crucial for blogging. They help to break the wall of text and capture readers’ attention more effectively than text does. If you aren’t a photographer or designer, then Canva is the right tool for you. It offers a lot of great images. Also it provides you with easy to customize templates for all kinds of social media posts. It takes away the technical challenges of Photoshop. It is easy to use and helps save time. Try Canva for free.

Pinterest Course

After you’ve found your niche and set up your blog, the ongoing challenge for bloggers is blog promotion. We’ve found out that Pinterest is the go-to platform for new blog promotion. It is simple to use, though you’d want to take a Pinterest course and familiarize yourself with the journey.

Pinterest operates with pins that get saved to boards. You can design them quickly and easily with Canva. Then you can use Tailwind, a pin scheduler tool that will save you a lot of time.

To enable your readers to easily share your pins to Pinterest, you might also need a Pinterest share button plugin.

Also, check this additional list of tools to help you make the most out of your blog. If you’d like to read more about how to start a blog, check out this tutorial.

Start an Online Business

If you’ve been blogging for some time but have felt discouraged by how long it takes before you monetize your blog, then Amazon FBA is a great way to sell your own products and start earning quickly even if you have no prior experience in ecommerce.

If you’ve already started gaining a steady number of monthly views but you haven’t reached the 50K views required to be accepted by the ad agencies in order to display ads on your blog, you could direct your existing audience towards your products on Amazon. On the other hand, we all know that monetizing your blog means having numerous ads across your blog posts. This might annoy or even alienate your readers.

Amazon FBA works perfectly if you’ve decided on your niche and have created content around it. 

The difference is, instead of selling other people’s products and earning a small commission, you would be selling your own and earning much more than just a commission.

Learning to navigate Amazon FBA became one of the hobbies I tried from home since the onset of the pandemic. While in lockdown, I actually took an Amazon FBA course and learned about the process. From researching product ideas, getting your product made in China, to shipping and selling it on Amazon, there is a bit of a learning curve there. There are some useful tools available to help your Amazon FBA journey, such as Helium 10. They offer a very comprehensive Amazon FBA course when you sign up. The course explains all the steps in detail. Also, there is a huge community of Amazon sellers to ask for help. 

Amazon FBA doesn’t require a huge upfront investment to start. Also, you don’t need to worry about the real estate and logistics of it. Amazon stores your product in their warehouses across the world and delivers it for you. All you have to do is find a product that your audience needs or wants to buy. Amazon FBA has great potential and you can scale it globally. 

As the pandemic forced many stores into closure, eCommerce platforms have played a very important role in the attempt to meet the rising customers’ demand during the lockdown.

We all know that Amazon has been one of the most profitable businesses globally during the pandemic.

So, learning to navigate Amazon FBA and the world of eCommerce as a hobby during the pandemic might be a great opportunity.

I live in China and speak Chinese so sourcing a product from China is familiar territory for me. Even if you don’t, I can assure you this is not a problem. Most of the factories have English speaking staff. My husband is a designer and since we plan to focus on the home décor niche, we chose to start with literary-themed drink coasters as our first product. They also make a great gift for booklovers. Look how they turned out:

Learn a Foreign Language

Whether you speak only one language or many languages, it’s never too late to add one more language to your list.  When it comes to choosing a language, asking yourself what your future goals are might help to make that decision. If you plan to visit a new country, find new work opportunities, or if you are a digital nomad and would like to spend a longer period of time in a new country, you might find learning new language quite beneficial.

Learning a new language requires time and effort. I thought this might be a new hobby that I can do from home during the pandemic.

The online platform Duolingo offers daily courses in most of the major world languages. They claim that 34 hours of DUOLINGO equals one semester of university language instruction.

You can do it at your own pace, starting from 5-20 minutes a day, no matter where you are.

I decided to try German.  Since I already speak Chinese, I figured I should be able to learn German easily.

Having ESL experience myself, I know that focusing on listening can be very beneficial for second/foreign language acquisition. So, I chose study materials that included an audio version of the text files. I didn’t push myself too hard at the beginning to remember everything from the lesson. Just by spending time listening, I noticed that I’ve started to develop some sense for this difficult language. Now I am ready to dive into the complex German grammar. Also, I’ve been thinking to get myself a one to one teacher to help me shorten this journey.

Maintaining Wellness During Pandemic

The onset of a global pandemic brought to light the importance of self-care and strengthening our immune system. Maintaining wellness simply means building healthier habits around nutrition, physical exercise, our mental health as well as social contact. 

I am not a health expert but since I got to China, I became very curious about green tea and its health benefits. We know that green tea contains antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and chlorophyll, which are the key factors to its multiple health benefits.

Though I knew that there are many varieties of green tea, I’ve always stuck with my favorites. During this time in lockdown, I decided to get and try its other varieties. The beauty of green tea is that there are so many different kinds, that you never get bored. So drinking green tea is a great hobby for the pandemic.

I kept drinking green tea throughout lockdown and I found not only did it help me maintain weight without too much exercise, but due to its calming effect I found it very beneficial in helping reduce stress and anxiety, especially during these times of uncertainty.

My curiosity about green tea led me to try and brew my own kombucha at home. Kombucha is essentially a fermented tea; it comes with all the health benefits of green tea with added probiotic qualities. Also, it has a refreshing taste; it is an interesting hobby that you can do from home, enjoy and share with friends.

Green tea also comes in powder, known as matcha. Due to the special method, it is harvested, matcha is packed with antioxidants, catechins as well as amino acids that prevent cell damage, neutralize chemicals in the body, and have a calming effect on the mind and body.

Matcha which is essentially green tea leaves in powder gives the same benefits but offers a lot more room for experimenting. You can make matcha smoothies, cookies, puddings and many other things.

Related Reads:

7 Best Morning Routines to Start Your Day With

Bring the World to Your Kitchen by Learning to Cook

If you’re still reluctant to go out to eat, now is the perfect opportunity to learn how to cook something interesting.  You may not be able to travel to a foreign country at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t bring that country into your kitchen.

For our house the cuisine was Indian.  My husband is English-American and inherited that characteristic British craving for a “proper curry”.  Lacking options for decent Indian food where we live, he took it upon himself to do the research and gather up the necessary ingredients to sate his appetite. 

Check out my post on Indian Spices: The Essentials, Uses, and Health Benefits

Living in the internet age has its benefits, and it wasn’t long before he had gathered the necessary recipes and ingredients.  Before long he had mastered several dishes, which are now a mainstay in our household.  It doesn’t hurt that the Indian diet comes with a litany of health benefits as well given its penchant for spices and vegetarian dishes.

Whatever cuisine it is that you and your family crave, it is likely that save for a handful of unique (but easily substituted) ingredients, everything you need to cook your favorite foods can be found online or at your local food market.

Since I came to China, I’ve had the opportunity to try many of the Asian cuisines.

The lengthy lockdown has challenged us to cook varieties of food in order to maintain nutrition and avoid eating fast food. 

I thought this was a perfect chance to learn how to cook my favorite dishes from the world’s cuisines at home: Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Mexican, Italian, etc. 

In fact, I’ve come to realize that tasting different food makes me really happy. Also it is one way to enjoy life in its varieties.  Knowing how to cook dishes outside your country’s cuisine can make dinners more exciting. It helps to maintain health and develop more diverse palettes. 

Cooking is a wonderful skill that brings people together. It’s not just a hobby for the pandemic, it’s a hobby for life.  Being locked in is the perfect time to brush up on these skills and learn something new.

 

Related Reads:

Chinese Breakfast Foods for People Who Love Variety

Learn to Mix Drinks and Start a Bar in Your Living Room

2020 has ruined our plans. While in lockdown, you may be tempted to pass away the hours by drinking yourself into oblivion. However, if you’re set upon the goal or just want a little reprieve through a tipple, we suggest you at least do it in style.

Now is the perfect time to learn how to make your favorite cocktails and even discover some new ones.  Who knows, you may even find something to pair with all those new and exciting dishes you’ve been learning. 

You don’t need a full bar to become a cocktail master.  In fact, you might be surprised how many drinks only require one or two liquors to make.  Mixing drinks is all about understanding the flavors of what is going into the beverage and what ratio is required to make everything come out perfect.  Once you get a feel for it learning how to make a new drink becomes simple. 

It’s a great new hobby to start practicing at home during the pandemic. This may even net you a job after everything blows over.

If you’re just starting out, there are plenty of great books online that will guide you through the art of the cocktail.  Some even dedicate themselves to themes such as three ingredients, one specific type of alcohol, or even book pairings!  Regardless of where you start, being able to craft a well-mixed drink is an essential skill for social gatherings, or showing hospitality at home.

Final Word:

I live in China. Even though life here seems to be getting back to normal, the new normal is far from over. Most of the quarantine habits such as social distancing and working from home still remain in place. So do my hobbies.

Unfortunately, we might need to spend the following winter at home too. So if you haven’t found any hobbies to try from home during the pandemic, it’s still not late.

Related Reads:

How to Make a Relationship Work When Life Gets in the Way

How To Practice the Hygge Lifestyle During Pandemic 

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