Tips to Stay Healthy While Working from home.

We have all been out of our routine for 10 weeks now. Working from home may have been a big adjustment for many of us. Years, if not decades of our life we have commuted to the office, done our work and then commuted home. We had to plan ahead, organize our life and ensure we had what we needed for each day.

• Were we going to the gym during lunch or after work?
• Did we have our bag and our runners with us?
• Did we have a lunch meeting, or do we need to pack a lunch?
• Are we rushing home for a quick dinner and then off to the little one’s soccer practice?

Now that we are working from home, it seems that most of the planning and organizing has gone out the window. There is nowhere to go at lunch or after work. Our commute is from the kitchen to our home office/living room/bedroom/basement. We don’t even really need to get dressed, put on makeup or do our hair if we don’t have a meeting that day. (We do recommend that you still show up to your day as you would at the office. You just feel better and more productive)

WFH has its benefits for sure! But there are also drawbacks when it comes to some of the healthy habits we have put in place.

Healthy Meals – now we can grab a snack and eat whenever and how much we want during the day. How often are we procrastinating something and staring into the fridge/pantry?

Exercise – without the initial habit of going to the gym, it is easier to quit early, or brush it off all together. For many of us, it isn’t familiar to work out from home. We don’t have the same equipment we are used to, there are no trainers or friends to keep us going, and there are so many more distractions. No one stops a workout at the gym to put in a load of laundry.

Movement in general is way down for most of us. We don’t have to walk to our cars, or to our office, or to grab a coffee. We are confined to our houses and everything is so much closer.

Socialization helps to boost your chances of movement and healthy choices. Many of us have that one co-worker who is always asking if you want to go for a walk or play squash at lunch.

How can you keep or start some healthy work from home strategies?

1. Put it in your calendar. Just like you would at the office, you have a gym session or walk at lunch in your calendar. Take the time to set up some recurring events to get movement into your day. (Remember how we discussed how exercise can boost your productivity in this blog?)
2. Pack your lunch or set aside breaks in your day to have a snack. Try your best to eat away from your desk. Now more than ever we need to break that habit of eating while you work.
3. Encourage your coworkers to go for a walk with you. Chances are, the coworker you walk with a few days a week is also a friend. Pick a time and head out together, we have these amazing cell phones that allow us to talk to people on the go! The fresh air, break from your project & connection will go a long way to boost your mood.
4. Set a timer to get up and move at least once an hour. And don’t just head to the kitchen each time to get a snack. Do a quick minute of squats, lunges, pushups, or jumping jacks. If you did that ever hour of your workday, you could burn an extra 100-200 calories.
5. Drink water. Right now, our stress is higher, and our movement is less, we need ways to help our body flush out some of the toxic stress.

Give these 5 tips a try and let us know what is helping you stay healthy during this isolation work from home period. Check out this blog for more tips on how to stay healthy while working , see the post here.