Woweeee, what a past month it’s been in our world with that little virus that is now permeating all of our lives.
With the increasing attention (and near mandates) to practice social distancing, it’s no surprise that certain businesses are having their employees telecommute. Are you one of these folks? And are you new to working from home? If so, it can be good and not so good from the health perspective.
Let me share a few observations and tips as a “work from homer” type for the past ~10 years.
It’s easy to get lazy. And here I mean, physically lazy. You get sucked into your screens, buried in phone calls, then you get side tracked into the social media abyss, and then next thing you know… it’s 4 hours later and you’re still sitting on your tail.
For reals, you can turn into a blob faster than a speeding bullet. Well, almost.
Some steps I’ve implemented and reformulated over the years to combat the “indoor blob making in the works” include:
Develop a Morning Momentum (MM) and Do It Everyday. This idea was a turning point for me to start each opportunity for a Good Day. The MM involves one or more activities you do first thing each morning (in a structured manner) to set the productivity ball in motion for your day. Of course, you have to figure out what that means for you and what it looks like. Once you get your MM developed, you have less willy-nillyness to your day. #noexcuses
Get morning daylight exposure - that means bright natural light (and hooray if the sun is shining where you be!). Even if you’re not getting outside for morning exercise, go outside and get yer eyeballs in the daylight (sans sunglasses) for at least 10 minutes. Those photoreceptors in your eyes will be happy as clams and your circadian rhythm will have a better groove.
Stand up to work and increase your NEAT (non exercise activity thermogenesis). If you don’t have a standing desk at home, you can easily make one from boxes and/or stacks of books. There’s no single right pattern to your sit-stand ratio, so you can alternate hours you sit and stand, or schedule your standing time when on certain projects or phone calls. I find that I feel more energetic on phone calls when I’m standing and able to move around. It’s as if the brain has more thinkability. We can burn ‘easy’ calories by increasing our Fidget Factor (aka NEAT), so start noticing whether you sit like a log or you move around throughout your day. If you’re log-like, then start movin’ that bod.
Schedule your purposeful exercise time. Yep, that means put it in your schedule and honor it. Oh, I know full well that your exercise routine may have taken a hit with the gym closing, not meeting your training buddies for the workout, or blah blah reason. I won’t go into that stuff here since that’s a whole other blog. For now, I just want to strongly recommend you don’t fall out of exercise habits and don’t let your excuses take hold.
Use an activity tracker. Observe your step count (outside of purposeful exercise) now that you aren’t commuting. Perhaps for some, it will increase (yaay, you!), but for most of us, it will decrease if we aren’t mindful. Again, here’s where Blob in the Making can take over and ya’ll really don’t want that. A couple thousand steps ain’t gonna cut it, so see where you’re at and then work gradually to increase it.
That’s it for now, but I have a few more tips related to food I’ll share soon.
Hit me up if you’re needing some help during this challenging time. We can all use a little support, even from our own little virtual bubbles.
Thanks for reading,
Dina