4 Tips to Stay Healthy While Working Remote

Company announcement after company announcement is making one thing very clear: returning to the office is on the backburner. But that just begs the question, what becomes of remote workers? Although many folks have layered healthy habits into their daily routine, even more people have not. The convenience of rocking a Zoom mullet (business on the top, pajamas on the bottom) is wearing thin after the many months of WFH culture. It's time to consider some new habits to keep your work efficient and your body, mind and soul healthy. Here are what we've seen work when you're working from home. 

Move Your Body

Moving your body has tons of health benefits, but did you know it can make you feel better AND make you better at your job? According to Harvard Medical School "The benefits of exercise come directly from its ability to reduce insulin resistance, reduce inflammation, and stimulate the release of growth factors—chemicals in the brain that affect the health of brain cells, the growth of new blood vessels in the brain, and even the abundance and survival of new brain cells." This can improve memory and the quality of your thoughts according to the article! 

How much exercise do you need to do to reap the benefits? 120 minutes of heart pumping activity a week will do the trick. 

Vary Your Environment

It turns out there is something called "the coffee shop effect" that suggest that background noise stimulates sensory signals in the brain. In fact, according to this Inc.com article and research done by Onno van der Groen, a neuropsychology researcher, "background-noise-induced sensory signals help the brain break out of a mental rut to see things from new perspectives." 

Where can you go that's not your home? Try local coffee shops, coworking spaces, parks, and libraries to stimulate you brain!

Have a Good Work Setup

Being distracted by your gear can be a major productivity killer. When your survey workers around our coworking space, there are a few things that they need to have to ensure they're getting more good work done: 

• A killer pair of headphones - to block out other people's conversations and listen to your preferred tune-age
• A comfortable and adjusted chair - we recommend our workers have their thighs parallel to the ground
• Screens Setup - too many headaches come from poor screen positions. Don't pay a chiropractor, invest in risers and elevate your screens to natural eye level. Also? We love a second monitor. Whether you've got a portable monitor or you borrow a monitor from us, it's so helpful to have more eyeball real estate
• An ergonomic keyboard and mouse - make sure that your keyboard allows for your arms to be as far apart as possible and invest in a keyboard that keeps your hand at the most natural position possible to avoid carpel tunnel and other work-related syndromes that keep you from feeling your best. 

Fun fact: For our full time desks, we have a budget to ensure that each one of our members are able to get the equipment they need to be as productive as possible!

Get A Community

Working solo is great. But even the most introverted of employees can use a little company now and again. As the months slip into years of working from home, it turns out that being alone for days and days on end can start to wear you down. In fact, according to Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University is quoted to report that "There is robust evidence that social isolation and loneliness significantly increase risk for premature mortality, and the magnitude of the risk exceeds that of many leading health indicators." (www.apa.org/monitor/2019/05/ce-corner-isolation)

Where can you find community? I mean, as a coworking space, we're clearly biased. Our community is vibrant and helpful and acts as both a source of friendship and lucrative business relationships. But if coworking isn't your thing, you can also volunteer in your community, join a club or an organization like the YMCA to ensure you're getting exposure to your community. 

What you likely know is that making friends as an adult is hard, so you have to be brave and reach out to people around you to start building a relationship. You know what? We believe in you!

Wrapping It Up

Whether you love or hate remote work, actively managing it is the key to making it work for you. The true meaning of self-care is ensuring your basic needs are met. We like to say around here that we are slightly more complicated houseplants and without basic care and feeding, you'll wilt. Take care of yourself and stay perky. 

Curious about Coworking? 

If you're on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington state, come take a tour of Spark Commons. In the heart of downtown Bremerton (near the good tacos), we're ready to ask you how you are every morning. 

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