We have all been there at some point: it is a long weekend, the weather is depressing as hell, and the internet was fun in the first few minutes. On goes the TV, and out goes your inner clock. Binge watching is a surefire way to nip boredom in the bud, but it can leave you with a queasy feeling that you have wasted a dozen precious hours of your life. It does not have to be that way, though: you just need to figure out how to turn binge watching into a constructive pastime and use it to productivity advantage.
1. Bingers united in at-home HD camp
If you tend to schedule get-togethers with friends and family around specific TV broadcasting timeslots, you are not alone – or at least not yet. Even if you prefer quality TV to parties and family dinners, the road can get pretty lonely once your friends and loved ones realize that they are less important to you than the new Daredevil episode. Fret not: you can hack your way to healthy social life and a happy family by merging your screen binges and the people you care about (or at least the ones whose asides during TV time you are willing to endure).
If you never get to take your significant other to the theatre, browse Cennarium venue and stage a private screening on the next at-home date. Your friends want to rain-check the after-work hookup over the premiere of the new episode of their favorite series? Do not let them get away so easily: invite them over for a PJ HD Bingers United party starring Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, or Grey’s Anatomy.
2. Muscle mass through movie marathon
The road to ab flab is built on engrossing shows, beer, and popcorn. Still, the fact that you are more of a movie marathon person than a runner is not an excuse to let yourself go completely, so put away those crisps and get your potato-y butt off the couch. You will not build a racer’s top shape in front of the telly, but you can inch towards a semblance of a slender shape by mixing up reruns with dumbbell reps, planks, tricep dips, squats, and jumping jacks.
To hack TV time workouts like a pro binge watcher, try devising a personalized system of exercises targeting different muscle groups. For instance, do 5 squats for every curse spoken during a talk show, go for 5 pushups and 5 tricep dips on commercial breaks, and launch a jumping jack spree for every round of applause during a TV quiz.
3. Chef it out like Jamie Oliver
We would all like to cook like Jamie Oliver and Rudolph van Veen. Alas, with all those compelling cooking shows on the screen, we seldom have any time left to make it to the kitchen, let alone make something edible on your own there, right? Wrong: there are hundreds of meals that take less than 10 minutes to whip up, and there is not a single good reason why you should keep your culinary ambitions in the HD screen plane alone. Why not sync the next Chopped or Hell’s Kitchen binge with a real-life gastronomic experiment? On top of enjoying gastronomic delights in full HD, you will also get to taste them in full flavor and enrich your culinary arsenal.
4. Extra tivo time for the busy bird
If you are doing a good job of adulting, you probably have little time for good, old tivo. Still, worldly obligations can sometimes go hard on the most disciplined of grownups, especially if the said grownup is constantly pulling their weight at work and at home. That is where show binges can come in useful: cajoling yourself into tackling a list of responsibilities is much easier if there is a prize to be had at the end of the hard work, and that prize (you are guessing right) is extra screen time. Whoever said that watching TV is counterproductive?
Screen binges do not have to be unconstructive – mix up the HD drill with a workout, family time, or chores, and you may wind up winning rather than wasting precious time.
