Unless you’re an actor or a model, your job doesn’t care if you have a six pack. It doesn’t care if you’re fat. It just wants you to be a good, productive worker bee before you shuffle off this mortal coil, which you’ll hopefully do at your desk with an empty in-tray.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care. With a few simple tweaks to your working day you can offset the negative effects and move towards a healthier body and mind.
Here are our favourite tips…
1 – Move
Most jobs involve hours of sitting. Sitting messes you up. It’s bad for your posture, shortening and tightening your hip flexors and encouraging a rounded spine, and it’s bad for your waist line due to the sheer level of immobility involved.
Use the step counter on the iPhone that’s glued to your hip and aim for at least 10k steps per day. Every time you send an email, reset your posture by reaching your hands as high as possible and sitting up straight. Take the stairs and use every opportunity you can to move.
2 – Identify Your Shit Food Triggers and Replace Them
There’s always a reason – you’re stressed or tired so you reach for crap food, a colleague brings donuts to the office and you dig in out of sheer habit. Recognise that these triggers are always going to be there, you just need to replace them with something else. Go for a walk instead of to the vending machine. Have a herbal tea instead of a Mars bar.
3 – Bring Your Own Lunch
It takes the same amount of time to cook one chicken breast as two, so make two dinners every night and bring the other portion in for lunch the next day. Saves you cash and means you don’t resort to whatever crap they sell in the work canteen or local area.
4 – Find An After Work Activity
The lure of the post-work pint is strong, especially as we approach summer. Try booking in an activity, either something physical like a training session, yoga or Jiu Jitsu class, or something more cerebral. That way, when Thirsty Thursday rolls around you’re nowhere to be seen.
5 – Watch Your Head Posture
Do you grind your teeth? 100% of you will answer no and many of you will be wrong. One indication is whether your teeth touching right now. Are they? They shouldn’t be.
Your teeth should only touch when you eat. The resting position of the jaw should be with the teeth apart, lips closed, and tongue in the palate. Any deviation from that will cause forward head posture and all sorts of other postural and muscular issues.