When Working a 9 to 5: Wellness Tips For Your Desk Job
The grind of a 9 to 5 desk job is no joke. You spend more time at work than you do at home, and trying to stay healthy is near impossible. Your days are spent perched behind a computer screen on an uncomfortable chair daydreaming about fast food for lunch.
At Vertical Technologies (VT), our team knows all too well the pains spent working long desk hours focusing on a computer screen. Good news, folks. There’s hope to staying well while working. Here are our VT tips to staying healthy at a desk job.
FOOD
- Switch from eating out at lunch to meal prepping healthy food – if you’re bringing a salad, leave the ranch out in favor of a low calorie vinaigrette.
- Keep healthy snacks around – think fruits and veggies.
- Ditch the high calorie smoothies and eat whole food instead.
- Pack Greek yogurt with some fresh fruit and a few spoonfuls of granola for breakfast.
- Add spicy food into your diet – hot mustards, hot sauce, chili peppers, salsa and wasabi have been shown to speed up your metabolism.
- Drink sparkling water instead of soda – you still get the same fizz without all of the added sugars.
- More. Water. Mark on your water bottle and set timers to make sure you drink at least half a gallon of water a day.
- Cut down on caffeine.
- Use a medium plate instead of a large plate to help control portions.
EXERCISE
- Take the stairs.
- Schedule your workouts like meetings – don’t let yourself skip out.
- Set alarms on your phone to remind you to get up and walk or stretch every hour.
- Have a walking brainstorm or office meeting.
- Take a walk during lunch to the nearest coffee shop or around the building.
- 2,000 steps (roughly a mile) can burn roughly 100 calories
Exercises to do while seated
- Shrug shoulders
- Extend legs
- Toe touches
- Stretch your back muscles in chair by twisting your upper body
- Stretch wrists by putting pressure on one hand, bending it backward and forward
- Go for a run at your desk
- Pretend you’re running by lifting your legs and moving your arms in a running position
- Tap your feet
- Move your arms in a circular motion
Don’t forget to take a break from your computer screen every hour. The water cooler is a great place to hang out for a few minutes – get to know your coworkers, and walk around to their offices. They are probably not as bad as you think.
I bet you didn’t think IT experts were this knowledgeable about healthy living. Well you thought wrong, my friend. The VT team loves all things tech solutions based, including software solutions, network services, troubleshooting, security solutions and infrastructure design, but we are also into maintaining a healthy lifestyle. When you work with computers as much as we do, there is definitely a need for some non-screen based activity.
Spend less time in front of your computer screen dealing with IT problems by bringing in the experts to handle them for you. Big or small, VT has the scalable solutions.
Sources
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-13931/21-ways-to-stay-healthy-when-you-sit-at-a-desk-all-day.html
http://www.webmd.com/women/features/10-tips-to-improve-your-health-at-work?page=3
http://www.snacknation.com/blog/how-to-stay-healthy-at-work/
http://www.womenshealthmag.com/food/healthy-food-swaps
