Health Tips for Office Workers: Healthier Ways to Work, Sit and Eat

If you’re officially back in your office or just preparing for that dreaded day (many people just found out that they enjoy working from home immensely), you might be considering the ways you can ditch your old and bad office habits and replace them with new and beneficial ones. Luckily, you don’t have to work super hard to improve health at the office. With a few habit changes in how you work, sit and eat, you can enjoy your office hours more and come back home fresh instead of exhausted. Here’s what to pay attention to:

Get up, stand up!

It’s amazing how sitting and not moving your body can have such detrimental effects on our bodies, but it’s true. Sitting can affect our physical health, mental health and overall wellness. However, once you go back to the office, you can grab a standing desk that allows you to alternate between sitting and standing throughout the day. When it’s time to rest your legs, make sure to sit in an ergonomic chair that pushes you to practice good posture. If you’re the boss or someone from HR, you can lobby for standing meetings. This way, workers will feel more engaged and energized, and your meetings will waste less time. Here’s an informative reading on causes and fixes on common problems of office desks like standing desk won’t go up, dig in.

Arrange your Office Desk and Chair

Most of us have been able to create a good workstation at our homes. We have kept things conveniently so that it helps us ergonomically. When you make the transition back, it is essential that you invest in good office desks. You need desks that are supportive of your personal and professional wellbeing. You do not want to be slouching at desks that have a low height. Make sure that you are arranging your desk in a manner where you are not straining your neck, back and other bones and muscles. The chair also needs to be set up in such a manner that it guarantees maximum support and upright posture.

Stretch and relieve tension

Even if you don’t believe in New Age philosophy, the truth is that we keep a lot of tension in our bodies and keep fears and stress in our shoulders, neck and thighs. These emotions are normal, so don’t run from them. Instead, recognize them, feel them and try to banish them from your body with a few stretching and breading exercises. These stretches can be done at the office in only a few minutes and you will feel refreshed and ready to tackle the day tension-free.

Take regular breaks

It’s easy to get immersed into your work and forget to take breaks, but with apps and devices like Pomodoro, you will be encouraged to take regular breaks to stretch, rest your eyes, hydrate and have a short chat with coworkers. These little breaks make all the difference!

Ditch your phone

One of the worst things we deal with at the office is distractions, and the biggest culprits are our smartphones. Mobile screens not only damage eyes but also mess with your circadian rhythm, cause a lot of insecurities thanks to social media and often make you miss deadliness and look unprofessional. For a better and healthier office day, turn off notifications, set timers for social media apps and leave your phone at the office when taking breaks, eating lunch or having meetings.

Stay hydrated

Before we tackle eating habits, it’s important to talk a little bit about hydration. As you know, water is irreplaceable, so if you struggle with meeting your daily drinking goals, get one of those attractive reusable bottles to keep at your desk at all times. If you need a little boost, you can stock up on tasty nootropic drinks that can improve focus, enhance learning and memory, boost creativity and reduce stress. Those that contain ingredients like GABA, Ginkgo Biloba and Alpha-GPC bring the best results!

Don’t skip meals

Offices are often full of stress, confusion and extra tasks you need to take care of, so it’s not weird if you forget to eat breakfast or lunch. However, skipping meals can be very bad for your health. The frequency of your meals is just as important as what’s on your plate. Skipping meals or going for too long between them can make your glucose levels drop, making it harder to focus. Blood sugar drops also make people more prone to overeating or reaching for junk food for their next meal. So your best tip is to create a good at-work meal schedule and stick to it!

Prep food

If you’re a busy professional with very little time for breakfast or proper lunch breaks, you can still eat healthy home-cooked meals at work every day. How? With meal prepping! You might think that meal prepping takes too much time, but if you do it correctly, it can actually save you a bunch of time and money AND provide you with healthy, practical and tasty meals. On Saturday, go shopping for all the necessary ingredients, on Sunday cook for a few hours, and for the rest of the week, you’ll have meals to just pop into the microwave and enjoy. There is even a bunch of recipes online that are perfect for bringing to work, so you don’t have to struggle with coming up with dishes on the spot!

Stock up on healthy snacks

Every healthy diet has a spot for snacks. Two snacks a day can keep your metabolism high, your glucose levels steady and your tummy quiet. Stock up on fresh and dried fruit, nuts like peanuts, walnuts and cashews, yoghurt or whole-grain cookies and crackers. These can be kept in your drawer or the break room fridge and consumed quickly when you need a little snack.

Even if you miss office work, you probably don’t miss all the physical and mental health issues it can cause. However, with a few changes in how you work, sit and eat, you can have your cake and eat it too!