Unemployment is very bad for your health and makes you age faster

Being unemployed in today's economy can cause serious health problems:
1. Severe depression due to

• insecurity about your finances and the future, constant worry
• endless rejections, low self esteem
• loneliness, losing the coworkers' company

2. Sleeping disorders resulting from staying up late and sleeping in.
3. High cholesterol and high blood pressure due to weight gain from sitting on the couch watching tv and snacking all day, or eating Top Ramen for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
4. Emphysema or some other lung disease from smoking more - since at work you couldn't smoke, you're now chain smoking all day.
5. Tension and migraine headaches.

Here are a few ways I have come up with to help you survive unemployment unscathed:

Go back to school under the Worker Retraining benefit

Call your local community college and find out where and when the Worker Retraining orientation is and make sure to attend. When you are in school you'll not only learn new and fun skills, but meet lots of cool friends, and you would be absolved from work search.

Look for meetups and support groups meeting in your area

By going to different meetings you will not only alleviate your loneliness and be able to talk about how miserable you feel, but might meet someone who could help you get a job. There are hundreds of meetups in every city you can find on meetup.com. There are many support groups for just about any condition: Alcoholics Anonymous, Relationship Addicts, Co-dependents, Adult Children, etc. You don't actually have to have a problem to go to such a meeting - you will be welcomed with open arms and not have to say anything if you don't want to.

Do a thorough cleaning of your house

Don't only clean your whole house until everything is squeaky clean and sparkly, but sort through all of your stuff, and sell or throw away whatever you don't need. You can sell items for free on: craigslist.org, ebay and amazon. You can make your own little store online for free.

Start a blog

Write something daily about stuff you care about. Advertise products you like and get paid for it by putting links to those products. If you need any help with creating a website or a blog, write to me, I can help.

Create your own job

Think of all the different services you can do and advertise them on craigslist! You can clean, you can cook, you can shop for elderly and disabled, you can read to the blind, you can teach someone something, you can do tutoring, you can walk the neighbors' dogs.

If you have a truck or a van, you can do deliveries.  You can find really cool stuff just walking around that people throw away. Say you see a really nice couch on the street. Take a picture of it with your cellphone, post it on craigslist or Offer Up for a very inexpensive price, sit on it and wait for someone to come and buy it. I saw a really awesome office chair the other day, like new!

Go through all your stuff and whatever you don't need, put it up for sale. Have a Moving Sale. You don't actually have to move. And a Garage Sale is good for a summer time.

You can rent out a room or even a corner of a room. For example; I made an extra bedroom in my one-bedroom apartment by separating my living room in two by a few tall bookshelves and a partition with shelves I made out of those plastic crates that connect together. It looked real nice, and I slept in it and rented out my bedroom.

Take your hobby seriously and start selling whatever it is you make

No matter what it is you make - scarves, gloves, birthday cards, cookies, pet rocks, someone somewhere wants to buy them. You can sell them on your blog (blogs are free), at a yard sale, on craigslist, on Offer Up, on Ebay, on Amazon, Facebook, Etsy, at a local coffee shop.