As the eased lockdown continues we’re all still sitting in our houses or gardens relaxing and trying to enjoy the time before coming back to our busy lives. 

That said, being confined to one place for long periods often leads to feelings of boredom, restlessness, and loneliness. 

Fortunately,  thanks to technology there are plenty of free and low-cost ways you can make your isolation time more meaningful, productive, and enjoyable. Here's just a couple of ways you can broaden your horizons from the comfort of your own couch.

Join Courses at Top Universities Around the World

If you’ve always wanted to take a class at Harvard or Oxford, you can do that without taking out a student loan thanks to edX or Futurelearn. edX site provides access to over 2,500 college-level online courses from 140 institutions around the world.

Popular subjects include computer science, history, data science, and business & management. Lucky for us, many of them are free. For an additional cost, you can get a verified certificate to add to your resume and LinkedIn profile after completing your edX course. 

FutureLearn offers you a powerful new way to learn from top universities online. Every course has been designed according to principles of effective learning, through storytelling, discussion, visible learning, and using community support to celebrate progress. Access to Futurelearn course of your choice is for free but you can upgrade to obtain a certificate and gain access to hundreds more. 

Learn a new skill 

Skillshare, LinkedIn Learning and Udemy offer video courses taught by industry experts in software, creative, and business skills. Over 6,000 Udemy courses are available for free, while a huge chunk of them can be yours for under $20. Skillshare (with easy-to-get referral code) could be free for the first 14 days and then only £13 a month( or £7 if you want to pay a yearly subscription).

With Udemy or Skillshare, you can even become a compassionate cat behaviorist, or poker champion, among many other things. You can also build your professional skills in areas like graphic design, content marketing, and photography.

Most paid courses in LinkedIn Learning and Udemy come with a certificate of completion, which you can note on your resume and LinkedIn profile.

Learn a language

Use your extended time at home to become familiar with that foreign language you’ve always wanted to learn. Plenty of free apps are available to download for iOS and Android such as Duolingo, Memrise, Busuu, Mondly, and LingoDeer.

Duolingo is a free to download, language learning app that you can spend couple of minutes a day perfecting your Spanish, Portugese, German, Japanese or even Latin. There are 30 languages to choose from and your plan is personalised to your ability across speaking, listening, reading and writing. 

You can also take virtual language classes with italki. Users can choose from more than 130 languages to learn from a bank of 10,000 teachers. Each teacher has their own course price, by the hour, and you only pay for the lessons you take. It’s a more focused way of seriously committing to learning to speak fluently. 

A great way to learn new vocabulary is through TV and film. Netflix, Amazon and others have many movies, reality TV and documentaries in different languages subtitled for support, but it’s a good way to get used to hearing a language in everyday conversation.

Previously mentioned Skillshare and edX also offer language courses prepared by native speakers.

Work out from your home

YouTube is a goldmine for fitness videos, so no matter your skill level or preferred method of exercise, you’re bound to find something that suits.

ATHLEAN-X features at-home workouts, tutorials, and nutritional advice with an emphasis on science; recommended for anyone who wants to increase strength and overall athleticism.
Yoga With Adriene includes a vast library of lessons geared towards beginner, intermediate, and advanced yogis.
Fly Ldn is a London-based yoga and pilates studio that also offers barre classes. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, it’s running free sessions on Instagram live (@fly_ldn) at 8am, 12:30pm and 6pm every day
Samery Moras Taekwondo is provided by a 4th-degree black belt in Taekwondo who has filmed at-home training videos that suit even novice martial artists.