Do you engage in healthy workplace practices that ensure you are healthy? You may be reading this, sitting in the office or your work station at home.
You see, that sitting you do daily takes a toll on your health and you may not even know. In fact, it may not show sign until the situation is critical.
On a good day, you just walk into the office in the morning and take breakfast. It may be milk and chocolate tea and bread with few cubes of processed sugar dropped into the tea cup.
For you, it is a good way to begin your day and set yourself up for effective delivery of tasks.
But you give less attention to some healthy workplace practices that you should uphold.
Not giving attention to these healthy workplace practices, over time, begins to show in your health and that is why we are putting it up here.
What Are These Healthy Workplace Practices
If you want to keep diseases that go with sedentary lifestyle away, you need to begin to do the six things below.
1. Eat Healthy
We begin here because your food is what gives your body energy through the day. Unfortunately, it could also be a source of health issues if you do not consider your calories count.
This is one of the reasons people gain weight gradually as they work.
You take milk and chocolate in the morning and you love your tea thick. Okay, fine. Indeed, you may be indulging because your company buys them regularly and you have to take them.
But the combination brings in calories to your body which you will not use-up for the day. Reason being that you do so much of sitting down.
In the afternoon again, you will eat food that is high in carbohydrate. This further compounds your calories count.
You can prepare some vegetables and take it to work as your meal or snack.
You can also get fruits – banana, orange, avocado – and snack on them while sitting. They will help ensure that you have good bowel movement and lower amount of calories to burn each day.
Also, they will give your heart nutrients and further aid how fast your body draws from the foods you eat. Proper digestion.
2. Drink Water
Water is something people drink below daily required intake. Some even find it difficult to get up from their desk and go get water. Is that you?
Find a nice water bottle and keep in your office. Once you get into the office, fill it with water and keep it on your desk; just close to your computer.
You will be shocked that you will finish that bottle and even go for more before close of business.
Water helps bowel movement and also helps your body draw energy from the food your eat (1).
3. Move Around After Every 2 Hours Of Sitting
This is one of the workplace practices that is not common among 9 to 5 workers.
They just walk to their seat, sit and work for hours until it is lunch time. Unfortunately, they have done over 3 hours sitting. Some don’t even take break. They eat their lunch on their desk.
Some companies that understand the role of movement in keeping their staff healthy and effective, take Yoga brakes, some go for evening run. They just find interesting ways to make their staff move.
This way, they stay healthy, lower risks of health issues that go with sedentary lifestyle – heart issues, diabetes and others.
You can use a mild alarm on your phone to order your movement time. That way you get uses to moving around to support blood circulation and effective body function.
4. Use Your ‘Commute Dead Time’ To Improve Yourself
If you do 9 to 5 job, how many books have you read in the past 3 months?
Most times, some don’t even finish a book in 3 months and by that, they are not improving.
One of the workplace practices we recommend actually begins on your way to work. You spend roughly 4 to 5 hours in traffic daily.
Basically, once you leave home for work, your work time has started counting. Begin today to read e-books, listen to audios, messages and teachings of high impact to improve yourself.
You can develop a skill with your dead time.
I, Williams Osewezina, mastered how to shoot and edit video contents with my phone while transiting to and from work.
That skill is earning me money in trainings and video productions aside from salary. I prepared myself for exit from 9 to 5 jobs using this skill.
You can do same and benefit from the time you commute.
5. Take A Nap
Sleep deficit is common among people who do 9 to 5 jobs in Lagos and other crowded cities in Nigeria.
They wake up as early as 4:00am and return home 10:00pm. Basically, some get 4 or 5 hours of sleep daily. You should have between 7 to 8 hours of sleep if you are adult.
Over time, this accumulated sleep deficit begins to show up in form of health challenges.
Your commute time is also a time to take a nap. Find a way to sleep for few minutes on your way to work and back. This way, you cover little of the deficit and reduce chances of you doing what we talked about in number 6 of this list
This is one of the healthy workplace practices that boost your health and make you stay healthy through work age.
6. Maintain A Positive Habit
Another place people err when it comes to workplace practices is to carry a negative mindset out of work place, into the vehicle and hold it on as they return home.
In your mind, how your boss treated you was awful and it runs through your mind like a locomotive train.
How Nigeria has become so hard for a salary earner, how electricity companies frustrate the lives of workers who hardly see the light they pay for.
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Keep your mind busy with something – a book, e-book, audio teachings and more.
They will help you clean your mind and take it away from these predicaments that are beyond your control.
Quit complaining and do something to change the situation. If you can’t change it, walk around it like you do to a mountain you can’t climb.
Assuredly, these workplace practices, if you keep them, will help you perform better, be more productive and begin to set you up for your future.
Indeed, it is important that you stay sane while you work.