If you work in an office, you may harbor concerns about how your day-to-day routine impacts your physical health. You’re right to feel concerned: Conditions such as heart disease remain at epidemic levels in the U.S., primarily due to sedentary lifestyles and poor health habits. How can you stay healthier during the daily grind, especially if, like so many, you’re working multiple jobs in the gig economy to make ends meet?
Fortunately, modifying your work habits can help you become more productive as well as protect your health. This includes not only your body but also your mind. Follow the 10 tips below to elevate your office game and improve how you feel and perform.
1. Replace Your Second Cuppa Joe
Are you in the habit of sucking down caffeine all day to power through? If so, you could make yourself more, not less, alert as a result. While caffeine boosts alertness in small doses, research indicates using too much of the substance does not result in further improvement [1]. It does, however, result in anxiety, jitters and even addiction.
Instead, replace your second cup of coffee with something like homemade chai tea, but pass on store brands laden with sugar. If you have digestive upset, try a glass of kombucha, a fermented tea rich in probiotics critical for healthy intestinal bacteria. Dehydration impacts energy levels negatively, and caffeine increases this effect, so keep a reusable water bottle handy to sip throughout the day.
2. Keep Healthy Snacks at Your Desk
It’s easy to hit the snack machine for some chips, especially when you’ve got the 3 p.m. doldrums and need a pick-me-up. However, doing so packs on the pounds quickly. Plus, the high sodium content in many commercial snacks impacts heart health negatively.
Instead, do a bit of food prep on weekends or your day off and create grab-and-go snacks to take to the office. Think vegetables with homemade French onion dip, sunflower seeds or ancient grain crackers with low-fat cheese spread.
3. Prep Your Lunch at Home
Stop hitting the dollar menu daily if you want to make your workday healthier. Most fast foods contain a ton of salt, artificial flavors, preservatives and fat.
Prepackaged TV dinners are not much better, so make lunchtime prep a weekly habit. Soups freeze well for easy lunches, and those with clear broths contain few calories per serving. You also can cook more than necessary for dinner and take leftovers along with you the next day.
4. Stay Away from the Smokers’ Bench
The friends we choose to keep influence our behaviors in several ways. If you hang out with those who regularly indulge in unhealthy habits such as smoking and drinking to excess, you’re more likely to engage in such things yourself [2].
Fortunately, peer pressure works positively, as well. Team up with the office health nuts. You’ll have someone to encourage you to hit that spin class after work, and you can share hints on improving eating habits, too.
5. Wear a Wrist Brace
If you type all day, you run a higher risk of developing carpal tunnel syndrome [3]. If you have difficulty keeping your wrists straight on your own, investing in a wrist brace can lend stability and reduce pain from the repetitive motion. You also can take over-the-counter medications, but these potentially harm your liver or stomach when used to excess.
Furthermore, adjust your monitor to a comfortable height. Recent research indicates young people are developing bone spurs at the base of their skull from looking down at tech devices. While not harmful, the condition can cause considerable pain in the neck.
6. Stand up and Stretch
Recent studies indicate you spend over 60 percent of your workday seated on average [4]. This hinders productivity, as extended sitting decreases blood flow to the brain. To boost your productivity naturally, try standing up and stretching every hour, preferably every 30 minutes.
One way to get standing more often is to invest in a variable height desk, which adjusts from a seated to a standing position. Talk to your HR department to see if budget allows such a purchase.
7. Walk Whenever Possible
Why sit around the conference table for your weekly staff meeting when a stroll around the building could boost creativity and ingenuity? When you get oxygen-rich blood flowing to your brain, it’s easier to think and communicate clearly. Instead of meeting indoors, do double duty for your health by getting together at a local park on sunny days.
If proprietary information makes meeting outdoors impracticable, try standing meetings. Not only are they healthier, but they also keep the office blowhard from pontificating longer than he can remain upright comfortably.
8. Give Yourself a Break
No one can keep up 100 percent productivity all the time. In fact, out of an eight-hour workday, the average worker spends less than three hours being their productive best [5]. This may make you wonder why corporate America insists on an eight-hour workday in the first place. Until society catches up with science, you can boost your productivity by taking regular breaks.
After you complete a task, take five minutes to zone out. Get up and chat briefly at the water cooler, or simply take a stroll around the office.
9. Embrace Natural Lighting When Possible
If you drive from home to the office in the dark and leave under similar circumstances during the winter months, you may interrupt your natural sleep-wake cycle. The body needs exposure to sunlight to produce the proper amount of melatonin, a chemical that regulates sleep.
You need not head outdoors in a blizzard, but gaze out the window if you have one near your desk. If you’re in a cubicle, use your breaks to visit the atrium of your building — anywhere you can expose yourself to natural light. You even can sit in your car during lunch for a sunshine boost.
10. Go Home at a Decent Hour
Your body needs time to wind down after work and dinner — otherwise, you may sleep poorly. Strive to eat your largest meal of the day at least two to three hours before bedtime to allow adequate time to digest your meal [6].
Burning the midnight oil likely won’t result in higher productivity, anyway. After nine to 10 hours of work, the body begins shutting down. It’s fine if you occasionally stay late to impress the boss, but doing so every night may hinder your performance overall. Give yourself adequate time to rest.
Making Your Workday Healthier
Just because you work long hours in an office doesn’t mean your health needs to suffer. By following certain habits, you can make the workday in any environment healthier. When you’re healthy, there are no limits to the heights you can take your career.
Author – Kate is an online journalist primarily covering health and wellness topics. If you enjoy her work, you can visit her blog, So Well, So Woman, or follow her on Twitter @KateHarveston!
Sources:
[1] https://www.verywellmind.com/what-are-the-effects-of-caffeine-on-the-brain-21842
[2] https://firstthings.org/how-friends-influence-behavior
[3] https://www.oip.com/treatment-options-carpal-tunnel-wrist-pain/
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5580641/
[6] https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/soon-can-bed-after-eat-11358.html
