3 Ways to Stay Healthy When Working from Home

Do you work from home, be it as a self-employed person or your boss let you telecommute? Consider yourself lucky! While most of the working population commutes to work every day, we are in the minority of those that do work from the comfort of our own homes. While we are lucky in the regard of choosing pajamas over slacks, we are losing some of the healthy benefits of actually getting up and going to a physical work place outside of the home.

Do you find yourself sitting in front of the computer more at home than you did when you worked in an office building? How often do you have to get up and walk somewhere to get something in your home?

Get up and walk around.

The more you sit in your chair and do work, the more and more you kill your metabolism, which we all know helps to burn fat and calories. Have you noticed you putting on weight since you started working from home? This may be one of the reasons. I suggest taking a walking break for about 10 minutes every 90 minutes. This means that if you work for 8 hours, you would have done roughly 50 minutes of walking (minus a lunch break). An easy way to remember to do this is to set a timer on your phone or computer to tell you when it is time for a break. Not only will this help clear your mind and help you refocus, it keeps your metabolism going, raises your heart beat, and is overall enjoyable.

Watch what you eat for lunch.

When we work from home, we have much more control of what and when we eat. Next time you go grocery shopping, find foods that you could make for lunch that are substantially healthy. Since you work from home, you don’t have to worry about keeping things warm, cold, or if a co-worker will see what you are eating. Thus, you can eat what you want, when you want. Add some fruit to your lunch and possibly kill any dessert. Drink water or zero-calorie and diet drink with your meal. With being in complete control of your lunch menu, you can eat more healthier foods than fast food or quick-fix items that are often not as good for you as often advertised.

Reduce the amount of time you spend in front of a screen.

If you work from home, you are more than likely spending much more time on the computer or other electronic devices more so than you would if you were in an office setting with people around all the time. You could tie this in with the walking tip above, but be sure to take frequent breaks from all screens. Keeping your eyes focused on something up close all day long can lead to vision problems in the future. Save your eyes and look away! Take a break from your computer for at least 5 minutes every 30 minutes. Like the walking tip above, you can also set a timer to remind you to do this.

While there are numerous ways to stay healthy while working from home, these are the easiest ones that you could implement right away and won’t take up much of your day. In what other ways can you stay healthy while working from home?