Health and wellness are often overlooked at work. Whether you work at an office or at home, utilize Virtual Assistant services or happen to be a VA yourself, it can be tempting to lose yourself in the hustle and just chug away. Who doesn’t want maximum productivity, right? Unfortunately, daily grind can have adverse consequences, as Stanford University professor Jeffrey Pfeffer mentions in his alarmingly-titled book “
Dying for a Paycheck.” He discovered that 61% of American employees experienced illness due to work-related stress with seven percent ending up hospitalized, costing US employers more than $300 billion annually and potentially contributing to 120,000 excess deaths per year. Yikes! In light of this, maintaining workplace health and wellness must be a top priority whether you’re at the top of the company, part of the rank and file or a free agent.So here are some surefire ways to help maintain physical fitness, health and wellness at work:
Get Enough Sleep
In his
TED Talk, neuroscientist Matt Walker says that “sleep is your superpower.” To sum it up, the shorter your sleep the shorter your life will be, and the longer your Zs are the better off you’ll be. In developed and industrialized nations, people are getting less sleep and this has detrimental effects on their wellness. Sleep is vital for both the brain and body, and the amount one gets will impact learning, memory, the body’s immune system and even one’s DNA. So, please get enough shut eye!
At Virtual BizNest our Virtual Team’s welfare is a paramount concern so we have a lounge where they can take naps during their break times, or when waiting for traffic to lighten up before they commute home.
Moderate Your Caffeine Intake
On that note, too much coffee will – unsurprisingly – have an effect on your sleep patterns and contributes to hyper-acidity.
Coffee can even alter your DNA too. While a nice cup of joe, or several, can help you go through the day, the knowledge that caffeine can break your chromosomal strands should be cause for consideration at the very least.
Proper Nutrition
Fresh food is best food – pardon the grammar. Don’t want to pack the pounds? Then know this: according to a study in the nutrition journal Cell Metabolism,
processed food, regardless of nutrition, still cause weight gain. Conversely, this means that more fresh food with lots of fruits and vegetables can help people lose weight.
After a busy day, there’s usually that temptation to go for some fast food, especially if you don’t have enough time left for meal-prep. Ideally, with proper time management one can spare a few moments to whip up a healthy meal. But if your place doesn’t have enough space for a kitchen, then it’s not going to be doable. Ideally employers could have pantries with the amenities staff need to cook their own meals – as we do in VBN. Anthony’s delicious cooking is one of the perks of
office life in Virtual BizNest!
Manage Your Energy Levels
It’s official, the
World Health Organization recognizes burnout as an official medical diagnosis. To combat this,
avoid overwork and recharge your energy levels, you have to view your overall wellness through a prism with many facets, which include the above factors and your physical, mental, social and fulfillment levels. These are more than the sum of their parts, as they come together and comprise your personhood. If you’re not tending to these aspects properly, if you’re overexerting yourself in some parts, parts of you are literally becoming stunted or worn down.
On the other hand, if you are mindful about these components and take active yet simple measures to maintain your well-being, then you’ll become stronger, fitter and better equipped to rise to the challenge and prosper in life!
Get A Life
Jack Ma might push for 12 hour workdays and six day workweeks, while Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos really pressure their workers in their Tesla factories and Amazon warehouses, we believe that this isn’t worth the grief. There’s more to the workplace than seeing workers as numbers on an Excel sheet, they’re human beings too. This is why we believe in living balanced lives, for our startup-running clients and our Virtual Assistants alike. So if you want to stay healthy at work, then you shouldn’t spend all your time there. You need to be
outside of work too, spending quality moments with your family and loved ones, pursuing your hobbies and passions, and more.
We pride ourselves in
how our VAs help working parents find this balance. This philosophy is something we extend to our extracurricular activities as well, with
volunteering activities aimed at paying back to local communities. These are not only important things for their own sake, but they’ll help you stay well and keep your perspective towards work healthy. Remember what you’re hustling and bustling for!
-John Li
