Life hacks: Best indoor activities during typhoon season

Reading a good book and sipping a warm cup of cocoa is a fun but all too common activity during rainy days. Plus, you might want more variety in your activities when the heavy rains restrict your movements inside your home’s four walls. But forget about playing games with your smartphone or tablet. We’d want to conserve that precious juice for more important stuff like communicating with loved ones and monitoring the news. What other things can we do indoors when rain pounds hard on our rooftops all day long?

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Play games. Typhoon season may be the right impetus for getting that dusty board game off the dark corner of your cabinet. Play with your siblings or friends. It’s certainly off our mind’s radar on busy days when we rush to and from school or work. But come typhoon season, try a game or two (or more) of Monopoly, Snakes and Ladders, or Uno and engage in some fun competition. You’ll probably realize that this is a lot more fun that playing Candy Crush on your smartphone or tablet all by your lonesome.

Share horror stories. Dark clouds, blackouts, and the impeccable timing of glorious, scary thunder set the stage for the sharing of your best horror stories and urban legends. It’s time to take out that folder marked “Best horror stories to scare the sh*t out of everybody” from your mental cabinet and put it to good use. Not only is the timing and occasion perfect, you get to sharpen your storytelling prowess for future sharing, too.

Create a camping site indoors. Gather your family or friends together, lay down your most colorful mat on the floor, and get those goodies from your picnic basket. The food doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated, as you can’t cook properly when there’s a blackout, anyway. Simple but colorful food like sandwiches, chips, salads, and dried fruit can do the trick. Now is also a great excuse to devour that yummy tub of ice cream. You don’t want it to melt to nothingness right? It would also be fun to roast some marshmallows for that perfect camping feel. Or if you’re the demure, girl-next-door, fancy-schmancy type, you can call it a tea party. To which you can probably add… (proceed to next suggestion)

Wine tasting. That wine you’ve been saving for a special occasion? Now is the time to pop open that bottle. Think about it. Family members (or you and your partner) are gathered together in one roof after a long time of individually rushing from one activity to another. What could be a better occasion than this? You have good company and all the time in the world to savor it. Perhaps over candlelight, too.

Music and jam session. Grab that guitar and get playing. Sing your heart out. While it’s not guaranteed to make the rain stop (in fact, it might get worse), you at least have something fun and crazy (in a good way) to do. Not only do you pass the time productively, you channel your creative energies in the right direction, too.

At-home spa and massage. You don’t have to call a spa service for this one. The good thing about typhoon season and getting stuck indoors with your loved ones is that you have them as your default human massager and giver of all things designed to make you feel pampered and loved. Have them give you a really good, long, and relaxing massage, or deep condition your hair. Make sure to return the favor afterwards.

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BONUS: Stuck in the office? You can do some or all of the things mentioned above while you wait for the rain to subside. But for the office setting, you can also take the time to bond with your colleagues and get to know them better. While we are too focused on accomplishing our tasks on regular days, rainy days can give us an opportunity to connect on a human level with the people we spend a good chunk of our waking lives with. Beyond water cooler gossip and a superficial chat about the weather (which is already bad and depressing, as it is), find something fun to talk about and connect on. Use this as an opportunity for better communication and fellowship. With all the office time you have in your hands, you’re bound to find out that when the opportunity rains, it pours.