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6 Tips to Stay Healthy & Fit While Working From Home (WFH)
I hope you and your loved ones are well in these extraordinary times. Due to Covid-19 many companies had been asked by Ministry of Manpower to adopt flexible-work or work from home (WFH) only arrangements, including my business. Let us stay safe and united to keep business as usual, we are all in this together. And most importantly is to stay healthy while we are working from home (WFH) during this pandemic period.
- Workout and Exercise Before You Start Work
- Start Your Healthy Diet Plan
- Have A Water Bottle On Your Work Desk
- Eat Your Fruits and Vegetables
- Take a Break and Stretch
- Sleeping Well is Essential
1. Workout and Exercise Before You Start Work
Stay healthy and exercise is an essential routine in keeping fit and elevate our energy. Seen we do not require to travel to our office, make use of this travelling time to do a short workout, even a short 30 minutes workout makes a different. I do a lot of outdoor jogging, my target is 3 to 4 times a week to keep my energy up. So if you are able to do some outdoor jogging even a slow jog it makes a lot of different, as once office hour starts you will be home majority of the time. And morning fresh air and sunrise are amazing. If you are unable to do any outdoor sports, you may do indoor exercise at home like yoga, tabata (high-intensity interval training) or core workout. You are able to learn all these indoor workout on YouTube, or from mobile apps such as “Tabata” or “Seven”.There are different levels, from beginner to advance level, choose your level according to your needs. So WFH might have you end up with some sexy six-pack abs.
2. Start Your Healthy Diet Plan
In this pandemic period, no one knows when will flexible-work or work from home (WFH) only arrangements will end. So let us stay positive and healthy by eating healthy. If you are someone who is already eating healthy, keep it up and share your diet plan on the comments below. I too had tried many diet plans before but sometime its really difficult to do so. As I am out and about meeting clients and places we meet up often do not serve healthy food, and end up eating fast-food, drinking soda or high calories food. Or due to convenient and lazy to travel too far from my office to obtain that healthy salad, I end up eating high-calories food nearby my office coffee shop. I love high-calories food, because very often they taste fantastic, but to stay healthy and sexy, i choose a more balance diet. Glad that I started cooking for myself since young, and now I cook daily at home for me and my wife.
While we are working from home, another “danger” will be, we might snack more than usual. It is time to starts that healthy diet plan now, as you are working from home you have more control on what you want your meals to be. In order to keep thinking about “what to eat”, plan your meals a day before, so you do not have to think so much and end up with instant noodle again. Lets makes thing really simple, you can prepare that salad vegetable the night before, all you need to do the next day is just to select you salad dressing, and you can easily obtain healthy salad dressing at supermarket. And if you want a more wholesome meal, but too tired to spend time cooking, try out “one pan pasta” or “one pot pasta” you will be surprised how easy and tasting it is. You can learn how to make “one pot pasta” on YouTube, just change the ingredient accordingly.
So it is time to bring out that weighing machine and use it, set you targeted weight you want to obtain, and go for it, you will end up with a healthier body and mind, full of energy and a much better cook too.
3. Have A Water Bottle On Your Work Desk
Having a water bottle on your work desk will gives you a higher chance of drinking it. I always have a 1.5L water bottle with me at home and a 1L water bottle in my office, so I can easily gauge how much water I had drunk per day. When It is easily accessible to us, we usually will drink it, and it will not break out workflow momentum to step out to the kitchen. I started water drinking habit many many years ago, to the extend I can taste the sweetness of good filtered plain water. I just follow the old school rule of thumb; 8 glasses of water daily (about 2L). There are many health benefits just by drinking sufficient water daily. According to MedicalNewsToday (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/290814#benefits), some of the benefits on drinking water are; lubricates the joints, delivers oxygen throughout the body, boosts skin health and beauty, digestive system depends on it, flushes body waste, helps maintain blood pressure, airways need it and helps in weight loss. Starts this simple hydration habit while you are WFH.
4. Eat Your Fruits and Vegetables
This is an old school tip and fortunately, I like eating fruits and vegetables since young, so this is eat for me. According to healthline (https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods-high-in-antioxidants#section12), antioxidant are compounds that your body makes naturally, protect your body from potentially harmful molecules known as free radicals, which can accumulate and promote oxidative stress. Fortunately you can also get them from foods, fruits and vegetable like; blueberries, strawberries, goji berries, raspberries, purple cabbage, beetroot, spinach, dark chocolate and many others. Fruits can also be a healthier alternative over that chocolate chips cookies you been eating while working.
5. Take a Break and Stretch
When work from home (WFH), you may have the luxury in selecting your seating area, you might end up sitting on your luxury Italian made padded chaise longue with steel and wood structure support, wrapped with soft and smooth leather ending with chromed details. Or just a common non-ergonomic dining chair. Do remember to take a break and stretch. When working in the office, we may look silly or there may not be enough space for us to stretch, but we got this benefit when we WFH.
6. Sleeping Well is Essential
To have a good night sleep, try not to use your bedroom as your WFH area if possible. This is because you might end up thinking about work when you sleep in your bedroom at night and unable to have a peaceful sleep. It will also very tempting to sleep late, as we do not need to travel to work early the next day. I know that because as a self-employed I end up sleeping way pass 3a.m, sleeping late is an addictive habit, I started from 1a.m and then end up laying on bed after 3am. Thus lets not create this bad habit, sleep at your normal sleep timing that enable you to have 7-8 hours of sleep.
Another important thing which affect my sleep is coffee. I like coffee, but I can only take a cup a day in the morning, and I take another in the afternoon, I will not be able to obtain that deep sleep at night. At first I did not know why I am unable to sleep well, until I remove coffee from my diet for a week. So if you are not having a good night sleep, try removing coffee from your diet for a week, you might see improvement.
Be Socially Responsible
As individuals and companies, we all have a duty to act in the best interests of our environment and society as a whole. When buying food supplies and essentials, buy only what you need. When you are sick, wear a mask, stay at home, see a doctor and do not doctor-hop. Keep at least 1 meter apart when eating places, shopping mall, while queuing and at work place. Stay safe and avoid crowded places.
One Last Thing
Stay Healthy & Fit While Working From Home (WFH), by making use of your non-travelling to office time to do workout. Start you diet plan, plan you meals ahead of time. Have a water bottle on your desk to remind you to drink sufficient water daily. Eat your fruits and vegetables. Takes short breaks to do your stretches. And have a good rest at night, refrain from sleeping late. Please also visit my other post on Covid 19 Singapore Updates on Medical Insurance Claims.
And lastly in order to reduce further spreading of COVID-19 in Singapore, Work From Home (WFH), social-distancing and reducing direct interactions in public and private places measures had been implemented. As one of the essential services during this Covid-19 Circuit-Breaker period. I am here for you, if you require insurance and financial planning services. It may be policy review and updates or a second opinion on your insurance and financial planning needs. Feel free to arrange a meeting with me. It will be conducted virtually through Zoom video conferencing at the comfort and safety of our home. So I look forward in seeing you on video, through my virtual insurance and financial planning services. Also not forgetting to give credits to all our frontline medical teams and government task force in fighting the Covid-19. Stay united and fight this pandemic together. Please follow the travel advisories and be socially responsible guideline. Stay safe and stay healthy everyone!
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Note: Opinions expressed are solely in Mr. Chan Kong Meng’s personal capacity and neither express the views or opinions of Prudential nor represent any professional advice in Mr. Chan Kong Meng’s capacity as a PACS representative.