As was expected, people had more leisure time in hand, as daily activities had been immensely hampered, working hours were mostly reduced and classes for students stood suspended . People were thus able to give more time to themselves during the lockdown doing something they loved and benefited them. A lot of people reported having taken up new activities, something they probably never found time to do amidst their daily schedule. Fig. 3, consists of percentages of people taking up a few common activities before and during the lockdown.
A lot of people have made positive changes in their lifestyle by making meditation (7%) and exercise (10.9%) a part of their daily routine. The increase (18.2%) in cooking could be mainly because of the absence of home helpers or cooks, which has pushed people into cooking for themselves and their families. The abundance of time might have encouraged a lot of people to learn and experiment with cooking. Be it students or working professionals, they generally do not have time left in their hectic schedules to indulge in online courses. The work from home and study from home culture might have saved them time to take up courses online (16%). During the lockdown, more people have taken up leisure activities like watching movies and series, reading, writing, playing and art. Time spent on social media also has gradually improved. This was mostly in agreement with a previous study, except that, more people had begun working out (Kumar & Dwivedi, 2020).