It’s cool that you exercise and try to lead a healthy lifestyle outside of work. But if you, like most people, spend the majority of your waking hours at the office you better learn how to stay healthy there too. Here are three actionable tips to improve your office life!
Have a “stand up” reminder
Sitting for hours makes your cardiovascular system lazy, your ankles, knees and hips weak, and your metabolism slow. It was even compared to smoking in terms of negative health effects (1). The best solution is to break up the daily amount of sitting into smaller segments. How? If you’re an apple person you can try the Health app that reminds you to be active after an hour of not moving. If you have an android phone or any wearables, you can set up hourly reminders in the native alarm app.
If you get the hourly reminder deep in a task, it’s best to have a standing desk to just change position and keep working. Adjustable height desks are not that expensive you can get one at Ikea for 199 EUR, search for SKARSTA. Other times, the reminder should prompt you to stand up and take a walk, drink some water, and do a couple of squats, chair push-ups, or stretches to get your blood flowing. It also helps if you can go out to surround yourself with green in a park and look into the distance to stretch and relieve your eyes too.
Snack on protein and fibre
The average office snack is usually something sweet in a shiny packaging comprised of sugar, flour, and oils. While it makes you feel good for a few minutes, you’re inevitably going to suffer from energy dips, hunger, and potentially even fat gain and other health issues. The best way to keep your hunger at bay, energy levels steady, and health robust is to stock up on healthy snacks. Studies show that foods containing a lot of protein, fibre, and water are best at making us feel full and satiated (2). So fill your office pantry and fridge with yogurt, nuts, seeds, fruits, veggies, cans of tuna, and edible insects!
Try our tasty protein and fibre filled cricket-bars and stay energized throughout your office day!
Add a plant
Having flowers in your office space might seem like an unnecessary luxury, like too much work for nothing but the opposite is true. Having a plant in your room has very real benefits. A study (3) from the University of Exeter shows that office plants increased creativity by 45% and productivity by as much as 38%. And it’s not just about performance, plants also clean the air and help dampen office noise. Ficus, garden mum, bamboo, and especially Sansevieria are great at filtering toxins from the air.
Sources:
1) Benjamin Baddeley et al., ‘Sitting is the new smoking: where do we stand?’, Br J Gen Pract. 2016 May, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4838429/
2) Holt SH et al., ‘A satiety index of common foods.’, Eur J Clin Nutr. 1995, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7498104
3) Knight C, Haslam SA., ‘The relative merits of lean, enriched, and empowered offices: an experimental examination of the impact of workspace management strategies on well-being and productivity.’, J Exp Psychol Appl. 2010 Jun, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20565201
