My Favorite Activities for my Brain

Now that it's officially summer in quarantine, I've been trying to think of ways to stimulate my brain and incorporate activities into my daily routine that aren't just online shopping or Instagram scrolling. I'm not the kind of person who can binge Netflix all day, but I am pretty addicted to my phone. So, I like to do a few things every day that are actually good for my brain. Today I am going to share some of my favorite activities that are a little bit more on this productive side!

Read a book

First things first... if you haven't figured it out by now, I love to read. You can find all of my book review blog posts here, but may I recommend to you a handful of my favorites:

Favorite beach read: 

The Matchmaker (my review here)

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (my review coming next week -- but it was a 5/5 for me!)

Favorite thrillers/suspense: 

The Woman in the Window (my review here)

Verity (my review here)

Favorites that might make you cry: 

The Art of Racing in the Rain (my review here)

This is How it Always Is (apparently I didn't write a post about this, but this book was so beautiful)

Faithful (my review here)

Listen to a Podcast

I shared all of my favorite podcasts in this blog post! I just love listening to podcasts because it makes me feel like I'm either hanging out with someone or I'm learning something... two things I consider productive! 

Learn a language 

I've been using Duolingo to freshen up my French skills! I took French all through middle school and high school and I loved it!

Take an online class

When Yale's happiness class became free at the beginning of quarantine, I knew I wanted to check it out. After all, I'm all about balance and positivity! I haven't really been keeping up with the class in real-time, but I enjoy listening to the lectures and doing some of the readings whenever I feel like it. It is so interesting to learn about the science behind happiness! If that's not for you, there are a million other online classes available... or here is a different website that offers classes from business analytics to productivity, graphic design to creative writing, web development to photography... you name it! How fun!

Play a game

I have to confess I am obsessed with playing Words with Friends on my phone. I was super addicted at the beginning of quarantine and have since lowered my time spent on the app, but it really is so fun. Maybe I'm just really nerdy and too big of a fan of Scrabble (literally my favorite game ever), but it's so much fun. I also loooove playing Sudoku on my phone, hahaha. But I think it's really fun to play stimulating board games or card games with family and friends, too! Especially outside. Especially with a cocktail ;)

How are you stimulating your mind this summer?!

xoxo