Five Occupational Health Tips for Office Workers

Adeesh Sharma
Managing work and personal life tasks can take a huge toll on overall fitness. One of the key reasons is the lack of adherence to a disciplined lifestyle and a healthy diet plan. This article provides useful suggestions on how to stay healthy even with a hectic professional schedule.

Maintain a healthy exercise regime
It is extremely important to have a daily exercise or workout routine in everyday life. Ideally, one should hit the gym each day even if it’s just for half an hour. However, if you can’t make it try out a light exercise routine during office hours or even at home. You should regularly walk every day, even when you are conversing on phone or during lunch hours. Try taking the stairs instead of the lift and keep taking short breaks regularly to stay away from constantly staring at the workstation.

Avoid junk food
Try to eat healthy foods and certainly avoid those that are high on calories and also low on nutritional value. Such foods can cause weight gain issues and also lead to deadly lifestyle diseases such as cardiovascular disorders and diabetes. So, instead of oily and starchy foods, prefer intake of wholegrain cereals that contain more fibre. Also, avoid munching snacks in middle of the day and instead eat juicy fruits such as oranges, which are not just high on fibre but are also a rich source of vitamins. These are also known to cure fatigue and stimulate alertness during the day. To keep your energy and metabolism levels high, avoid heavy meals and instead go for short meals during the days. Also, avoid packaged foods as these are high on sugar and fat.

Take adequate rest
Sleep deprivation is a known cause of lifestyle diseases and can also make you feel lethargic and irritable in office. So create a sleep schedule and stick to it each day. Avoid watching too much television or surfing the internet as this can disturb your sleep patterns. Also, avoid eating heavy meals during dinner and also taking caffeinated drinks or alcohol just before heading off to bed.

Respiratory exercises
Multitasking during day leaves most workers stressed out. Short but regular sessions of deep breathing can help to reduce your anxiety levels a great deal. You should close your eyes and focus on relaxing and tensing each muscle group while taking deep, slow breaths. The best part is you can practice deep breathing just about anywhere in office, at home or even outside in parks and cafeteria.

Maintain the right posture
Keep a watch on your posture to take care of your back and neck, and also to help increase concentration and thinking ability. You should always sit on a quality office chair, one with firm and dense cushioning and back support. Also, instead of resting your weight on a particular foot, plant both feet flat on the floor. You may set reminders each day to ensure you are not deviating too much from the ideal posture you’ve set for yourself.