Activity Ideas to Pass Time During Quarantine

By: Caitlin Jones, Q7 UWS doctor of chiropractic and sports medicine student

With everything closed and not being able to spend time with friends in person, I’ve heard a few people talk about how bored they are. I can’t say that I have this whole quarantine thing figured out, but I can say that I have not been bored once. Sure, there are days where I’m unmotivated to do much and end up watching hours of old Boston Legal episodes or movies – haven’t tried Tiger King yet, but my Instagram is covered in memes about it – but for the most part, I have a ton of activities to do every day.

My tip for staving off boredom without becoming one with your couch is to switch up your activities. I start off my day by making a real breakfast. I love to cook, it takes time, it’s delicious and it makes me happy. After, I’ll spend a few hours reading, putting a puzzle together while listening to podcasts, crafting, calling friends and family, and going for walks. I try not to do something until I’m tired of it because then it makes my enjoyable activities unenjoyable. The trick is to find something that you enjoy doing and to switch it up every couple of hours.

I have a friend who loves to paint, but hasn’t been able to since starting the doctor of chiropractic program due to lack of time. Same with a friend who used to play the guitar and another who used to read books for fun and not just to learn about physiology and neuroanatomy. We have so much time now to go back to activities that we love to do but always had excuses to put it off – mainly because we don’t have the time or energy. Well, that’s no excuse now! 

I’ve busted out all my old coloring books, my stamping craft supplies, and I joined Kindle Unlimited so I can read all of the Harry Potter books and the Wayward Pines trilogy. I’ve also called and video chatted with friends I haven’t spoken to in months. They’re all stuck at home too and it’s great to reconnect with them. I love podcasts, but it’s usually difficult to find time to listen to all the ones on my list. Now, I listen to them while crafting and going on walks. If you’re looking for some to take your mind off of COVID-19, but still want it to be relevant to chiropractic or sports medicine, I recommend “Stronger by Science.”  There are two guys discussing current research and even talk about confidence intervals and metabolic enzymes so you get a bit of Dr. LeFebvre and Dr. Williams.

There are also a ton of online resources to keep you entertained. As I mentioned in my last post, the National Parks have some virtual tours and many other places have set up the same thing! You can go to France to see the remains of the Louvre’s moat and an Egyptian collection here, see the arms and armor exhibit in Manhattan’s Met Gallery here, and tons of whale vertebrae at DC’s Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History here. If you want more ideas, Smithsonian Mag lists and links 10 different museums around the world with virtual tours here.

If you want something more school related, go to Dynamed and see what current research is being done, look for scholarships, and brush up on your anatomy and palpation skills. Start compiling information for your next board exam, whenever that may be.

If you don’t want to be bored, there are plenty of options to keep you active and your brain engaged.  Reconnect with old friends and hobbies, look up fun recipes to try – going to the grocery store is now a very time-consuming endeavor! Enjoy your socially distant time before the world restarts and you can go back to saying you don’t have time to do your favorite hobbies.

Hopefully that gives you some ideas to make the best of this time. The next blog will be a Q&A from our favorite professors on what to expect from them this quarter. Going remote is going to be different and they’re giving us some helpful tips on how to best succeed!

How to Remain Active While Remaining Socially Distant

By: Caitlin Jones, Q7 UWS doctor of chiropractic and sports medicine student

I don’t know about you, but two weeks into social distancing and I’m going stir crazy. Both of my roommates drove home for break and quarantine, and since my family lives across the country, I decided to stay in Portland. By myself. Being a full-time chiropractic and sports medicine master’s student, I’m looking at this as a welcome break to do the small things that have been on my list for months. I also try to maintain some normality in my days. I take a shower every day, even though my hair doesn’t get washed nearly as often as it used to! And to keep my sanity and my health, I’ve tried some ways to remain active while keeping socially distant. Hopefully these ideas will help you too!

Without gym access, I signed up for a free daily newsletter that has a new body weight workout that I commit to doing. My pushups are starting to get really good after only a week! If you’re interested, there are plenty of free and paid options out there, but I subscribed to Brute Force Training since I was looking at getting some home equipment when I realized that the gym would not be available for at least a month. I try to do the workouts in my yard as often as I can. Even in the front yard so I can wave at people as they walk around the neighborhood while maintaining social distance but getting some much needed human interaction.

There are also great yoga sessions, Barre classes, Zumba, HIIT training and more available for free on YouTube. I subscribed to Black Swan Yoga for $8 a month because I really liked the consistency of the instructors, the different skill levels, meditation practices, and it fit into my small budget. If you are a gym, sport or group fitness class enthusiast, look up that activity – you can definitely find a way to practice your skills at home.

Another great way to stay active and get outside is to go on hikes. Despite the large number of trail closures, there are still plenty open. Just be sure to be safe. On my last hike in Mt Hood National Forest, there was a sign stating that rescue teams are not readily available. So I made sure to let someone know what hike I was taking and an expected time for me to return. It’s also recommended that you only go hiking with people in your household and try to maintain a six-foot distance from others. Some hikes make that impossible. When I went to Angel’s Rest a week ago it wasn’t that busy when I got there, but as I was coming down, there were a tremendous number of people on the trail. I couldn’t make it 10 steps without passing someone. So if you go to a trail and the parking lot is full, you should consider going on another hike. I make sure to go early in the morning and even on days that aren’t the best weather. It gets me outside while still being able to remain socially distant. When I went to Mt Hood, I was the only person on the trail for my entire hike. Granted, there was four feet of snow, but the trail was marked with footprints and it was an amazing experience to be alone in nature.

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There are a number of trails closed, so I use the All Trails app to give me ideas of where to go and it marks which ones are currently closed. You can also look up individual parks and forests such as Mount Hood to see what options they have available. It is recommended that you stay local, so if you had grand plans to go to Zion National Park in Utah as I did a couple of weeks ago, think again. That park is closed now, but it is also a 16-hour drive – so not quite local. Personally, I’m staying within an hour drive. And to satisfy my desire to go to National Parks, they have started virtual tours that you can check out here.

If you aren’t a hiker, or don’t feel comfortable hiking by yourself, take a walk or bike around your neighborhood! Once I got bored of walking around mine, I drove down to the river and walked along it for an hour. I downloaded a book on tape and lots of podcasts to listen to on my walks so I’m being active while still learning and keeping up to date with current events. The podcast I listened to today was great because it was all about how to make the most of your home workouts. If you’re interested in giving it a listen, it’s the Mind Pump podcast episode number 1257: The Best At-Home Exercises for Your Entire Body.

Even though we should be practicing social distancing, that doesn’t mean that you can’t get outside and remain active. UWS is a really fit and active community. It’s great for mental health and I hope that you are able to get outside.

I’ll be writing a few blog posts about how to keep your sanity through this, so stay tuned for the next one on at-home activities!

We connected with UWS DC students Caitlin Jones and Leandra Ramsay, attendees of the 2020 American Chiropractic Association’s ENGAGE conference held in Washington, D.C., to recap some highlights of their trip!

Caitlin Jones, 6th quarter DC student

Being from Washington, D.C., and working for a youth advocacy program before coming to UWS, I immediately jumped at the chance to join the UWS Student American Chiropractic Association (SACA) to go advocate on Capitol Hill for chiropractic physicians. Every year, SACA joins the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) in Washington, D.C., for the ENGAGE conference (formerly NCLC) to advocate, attend seminars, meet practicing chiropractic physicians, as well as mingle with students from the other schools across the country.  

This year, 32 students from UWS made the trek and it was amazing! I took a red eye flight with a few people so that we could get some sights in before the conference started Wednesday night. We nerded out at the Natural History Museum looking at dinosaur vertebrae, saw the monuments and grabbed an amazing breakfast at Ted’s Bulletin with homemade pop tarts. After a long day of sightseeing, we got some rest, because Thursday was our long, exciting day on the Hill.

A big part of ENGAGE is to go to meetings with senators, representatives and their staff. In the past, ACA has discussed a few bills at their meetings, but this year we focused only on H.R. 3654, which allows Medicare patients to see chiropractic physicians for more than just spinal manipulation. We were seeking representatives to co-sponsor the bill and vote for it to pass when it came time. If passed, chiropractic physicians would be able to provide the level of treatment needed to Medicare patients. In addition to spinal manipulation, chiropractic physicians would be able to manipulate extremities, provide a physical exam, order diagnostic imaging and use the conservative care treatments that we have been taught and are experts in.

After advocacy day, there were a number of amazing seminars to go to. I attended one on low back pain and it reaffirmed everything that Dr. LeFebvre teaches in Spinal Disorders. There was also a great talk on sports injuries that focused on treating the whole patient and how to analyze athletic injuries. The last seminar I went to was one of my favorites as it was talking about how to get patients motivated to do their rehab through gamification. There were some really great topics and presentations, it was difficult to choose which to go to!

It was a privilege to be able to go to D.C. to advocate on the Hill, meet with chiropractic physicians and students from across the country and get to know my classmates more outside of campus. It was an amazing opportunity and it inspired me to run for SACA’s Legislative Rep so that I can be more involved in ENGAGE 2021. I’m honored that my peers were as motivated as I was an we have a new SACA executive board with an amazing vision for our school and ENGAGE 2021!

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Leandra Ramsay, 6th quarter DC student and Canadian native

This was my second time attending the ACA conference in Washington, D.C. Last year was so much fun I couldn’t wait to go again! Since I wasn’t a rookie this year, lobbying was a lot more fun and exciting because I knew what to expect. Being a Canadian student, many people didn’t understand why I wanted to go to ENGAGE in the first place and quite honestly neither did I the first year I attended. I mainly went because D.C. was always a place that I had wanted to see. What started as a tourism mission ended with new friends, new experiences and an eagerness to eventually lobby back in Canada to help improve the chiropractic profession back home.

The first day we were in D.C., Caitlin (Jones) showed off her extensive knowledge of the city and made sure we didn’t go hungry. After taking a red-eye flight from Portland, breakfast and coffee were top priorities. After eating, we walked down toward all the attractions stopping to view the White House and meandering through the Museum of Natural History. Day two was a big day. Everyone dressed to impress for their meetings on the Hill. In small groups, we met with representatives from both the House of Representatives and Senate to talk about Bill H.R. 3654 in hopes to improve Medicare benefits so that chiropractors have a wider range of billable treatment options. The day ended with an amazing dinner a Filomena’s, a wonderful Italian restaurant with homemade pasta and cheesecake. Dinner was provided by Dr. Brimhall and gave us students a chance to interact with some of the school’s staff and faculty in a professional but laid-back setting. If I’m being honest, this is the main reason I came back to D.C. for a second time – believe me, it’s worth the trip.

The rest of the conference featured multiple seminars on various educational topics to choose from and an expo with more freebies than I could fit in my carry-on.

My experience at ENGAGE was one I will never forget. From seeing the amazing architecture and history that the Capital has to offer to making a difference on the Hill for the future of our profession, the Washington trip is something all students should be able to experience. I have learned so much about the political influence in health care and how patients often suffer due to decisions that are made from higher up. I hope to build on this experience when I return home to Canada and get more involved with my provincial and national associations so that I can help improve health care benefits for my future patients. If we all could learn to be activists for our patients, I believe it would make us better doctors.

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