9 Ways To Improve Your Quarantine Well-Being

In her Science of Well-Being digital health program, Professor Laurie Santos recommends practicing and tracking your signature strengths, savoring, gratitude, kindness, social connection, exercise, sleep, mindfulness, and time affluence. GETTY.

Whether you are directly or indirectly affected by the COVID-19 viral disease, you may be feeling down as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic. There are many solutions out there to help lift your spirits, but not all are backed by research in behavioral science, nor specifically by evidence from the study of happiness and well-being. However, Professor Laurie Santos at Yale University has synthesized the science of well-being into a course for students at Yale, a course for students on Coursera, and has most recently transformed her work into a digital health program on Pattern Health (where I am Head of Behavioral Science) that can be licensed by employers to provide to their employees.

The recommendations that stem from the science of well-being are useful in normal times, but essential in coronavirus times, where the collective hit to well-being is being felt across the globe. There are 9 major insights that can be taken from Santos’ Science of Well-Being program, which I present here to help improve your quarantine well-being. They are: practice your signature strengths, savor life, be grateful, be kind, stay socially connected while physically distanced, exercise regularly, sleep well, meditate, and feel rich with time.

1. Practice Your Signature Strengths