Coronavirus: Kiwis share how lockdown has improved their lives

Kiwis have shared how the lockdown has impacted their lives.
Kiwis have shared how the lockdown has impacted their lives. Photo credit: Getty Images.

Ahead of the switch to alert level 3 tonight, Kiwis have shared how the COVID-19 lockdown has improved their lives. 

While there have been plenty of negatives from the lockdown, Kiwis have flocked to social media to share the good parts. 

Writing on Reddit, one person said the lockdown had helped them realise their life before the lockdown was "broken". 

The user said they spent the last 15 years on the corporate grind but have since realised that's not what they want. 

"During the lockdown I have had time to be with my children. And I mean, truly present with them. I have been relearning Māori. I learnt to bake rēwana bread from a group on Facebook.

"I did a whole lot of planting in the garden with the kids, and we have been baking from scratch and cooking every day. I have learned all the words to my kids favourite songs from Frozen.

"I have spent more 'real' time with them than I have in years."

They said spending time with their children has helped them slow down and appreciate the meaningful things in life. 

"My life has been infinitely more enjoyable. Because it has been slower and more meaningful. I know this can't and won't last, but I honestly feel like my usual life is broken.

"I have money, but for what? To basically rush through life, grind it out every day, miss out on my kids, buy stuff that isn't essential to life, and try to cram as much living as possible into my Saturday afternoons."

The post prompted others to share how lockdown had improved their life, with one user saying they had found time to exercise more regularly while working from home. 

Another said the lockdown has helped them realise how busy their life was before. 

"Not only was I usually doing three things at once, I was often thinking of a further six things to be doing when I'd finished that," they wrote. 

Another person commented saying they are a teacher and have loved teaching from home.  

"Teaching my students online from my own home has been amazing. It has made me realise that normally there are hours of pointless meetings and edicts from management which consist of lots of extra jobs for us to do so that they can justify their existence.

"None of which has been able to happen in the lockdown. I have loved just doing the teaching. I don't want to go back," they wrote. 

However, not everyone has been enjoying lockdown with multiple users saying it has made them lazier, messed with their sleeping patterns and made them more reclusive. 

One person said they had done "nothing" all lockdown. 

"I've quite literally done nothing but sit at my PC for 18 hours a day... I have no friends... My sleep schedule keeps slipping by 2 hours every day, and I only fixed it a few days ago. I either sleep for 14 hours or 2 hours," they wrote. 

Another user agreed, saying lockdown has "magnified all my slothful and self-destructive qualities".

At 11:59pm on Monday, New Zealand will move to alert level 3.