This is a collaborative post
Working from home is becoming more and more common. In fact, since the onset of the covid pandemic, the number of people working from home has more than doubled in the UK.
There are many benefits to working (increased productivity, decreased office politics), but some risks are also.
This post will discuss three necessary steps you can take to protect your health when working from home.
Protect your mental health
The biggest problem that freelancers and remote workers face is isolation. Sometimes, it’s hard to feel like you’re part of a team with no one to be around. Even if you have a great work environment, not interacting with other people can cause anxiety and stress.
But there are ways to combat this! Doing things like exercising or spending time outside the house can help boost your mood, so you don’t feel isolated. Talking to other people about how you feel can be helpful in many ways; even talking about your mental health concerns can be therapeutic even if no resolution is reached. Plus, if people know how you feel, they can support you better.
In addition, finding strategies to make yourself more productive can help decrease the amount of time spent in isolation. Setting goals for yourself and staying motivated throughout the day will help ensure that you’re not spending too much time at home.
Protect your physical health
One important thing to consider when working from home is your physical health. It’s essential to make sure you’re taking care of yourself and your body because it does not stop working when you’re sitting at home.
Here are some tips for protecting your physical health:
· Get enough sleep
· Drink water and limit caffeinated drinks
· Exercise regularly
· Avoid pulling all-nighters or staying up too late
· Make sure you have a healthy diet
For those working in front of a screen all day, it is essential to make sure you have regular breaks from the screen to avoid eye strain. Visiting your optician can help you make sure your eyes are in total health and give you advice on protecting yourself from blue light exposure. You need to add a filter to your lenses or your screen to reduce blue light emission, or you can choose transition lenses that will help with eye strain, headaches, poor postures, and any other issues associated with looking at screens for prolonged periods.
Protect your environmental health.
A significant risk associated with working from home is your environmental health.
When you work at home, you are more likely to spend more time in your home office. Doing so can increase exposure to allergens and pollutants that would otherwise be limited to a workplace environment.
Make sure you’re taking steps to protect yourself by using an air purifier when working remotely to reduce pollutants in the air. Factors such as being too hot or too cold at home can affect your working environment; this would be controlled in the workplace to make it conducive to working.
Allow for fresh air into your home or remote working environment, too, as this will help with clearing the air and allowing you to benefit from bringing the outdoors in. Fresh air, like water, can have many overlooked health benefits and is essential for our bodies to function.
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