If you find yourself managing your small business from home due to COVID-19, you might find your mental and physical health starting to slip.
Breaking your normal daily routine to spend time in quarantine can lead to you developing unhealthy habits, such as skipping out on breakfast and going straight to work.
If you’re currently working from home, take the time to develop a new routine so that you can stay both physically and mentally healthy.
This can also help make returning to your normal work routine easier once you no longer have to stay at home.
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Staying Healthy While Working From Home
Or, even if you realize you prefer working remotely instead of working in an office, these tips can also be beneficial.
Eat a Balanced Diet
Working at home means you might be more tempted to eat that bag of chips for lunch instead of putting a salad together.
Don’t fall into the habit of trying to survive off of junk food and carbs. Make sure to eat a balanced diet.
This includes eating three meals a day and eating foods from all food groups. Healthy foods to keep available include eggs, leafy greens, lean meats such as salmon and chicken, and whole grains.
Drink Plenty of Water
In addition to eating right, make sure that you drink right as well. This means staying hydrated.
If you’re caught in the trap of living off of energy drinks and beer, it is time to start incorporating at least eight glasses of water a day back into your routine.
Proper hydration helps you stay focused and alert. If you find yourself getting groggy and headache mid-day, making it hard to make important business decisions, start drinking more water!
Don’t Sit All-Day
It can be easy to roll out of bed, sit down right at your computer, eventually move to the couch, and then return to bed.
However, sitting all day can lead to health concerns, such as obesity and lower back pain.
To combat this, schedule daily exercise (such as walking around your neighborhood or a few minutes of yoga) or invest in one of these sit and stand desks from HADO. Get up and move during the day!
Take a Break from Screens
Depending too much time staring at the computer, television, or phone screen can lead to eye strain and other problems, such as headaches.
While working from home means you’ll have all these electronics readily available for you during all hours of the day and night, that doesn’t mean you should spend off of your waking moments looking at them.
At a minimum, try to step away from the screens every half an hour to let your eyes rest.
Develop a New Hobby
Just like you shouldn’t be staring at screens all day, you also shouldn’t be working all day! Even when you’re working from home, you still need time to relax.
Now is the perfect time to begin developing that new hobby that you’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t find the time for. Want to learn how to meditate?
Or maybe you’re interested in picking up knitting?
Or maybe you like putting puzzles together?
Start developing those interests!
Get a Good Chair
Many people don’t have a good supportive office chair at home. Even if you have a chair that provides lumbar support at your office, you should also have one available to you while you’re at home.
Proper lumbar support during the day can help keep your back from growing stiff and sore.
When sitting in the chair, your feet should be able to comfortably rest flat against the floor and you should be able to sit up straight.
Separate Work from Home
Finally, make sure that you find ways to separate your work life from your home life. This can be hard when you’re working from home.
However, if you spend all of your time thinking about work or working, you’re quickly going to become stressed and burnt out.
Ideally, your work area should be in a completely separate area from the rest of your home. If you have a room with a door that you can shut off, put your computer there.
In Summary
When it comes time to work remotely from home, you’re going to want to develop strategies that allow you to stay mentally and physically well.
Just because you’re working from home doesn’t mean you should let your routine disappear!
Developing a good routine with plenty of self-care time will allow you to be the best you that you can be.
