Working Remotely and It’s Impact on Your Body
Lacey How Can Working From Home Affect Your Body?
Now I’m not saying working from home isn’t great, but there are plenty of health risks involved with it so you need to stay alert to them. Now most people’s work at home involves sitting at a computer for hours on end and snacking on chips. Already we can see a few problems, sitting for extended periods of time can cause a multitude of health problems, working at computers can really make an impact on your eyes, and snacking can cause weight gain.
These problems would be less prominent if you were still working at your job site, since you might have to get up to go give someone files or go to the breakroom to get a refill of coffee, either way you’d be taking a break from sitting and staring at the computer.
What Are Some Health Risks Involved with Working From Home?
There are many health risks with sedentary jobs, but let’s just go over the main issues, which involve; sitting for long periods, staring at computer screens for hours, and eating snacks while working.
Lower Back Pain
Sitting all day everyday can really affect your body, it’s called deconditioning or how many put it, use-it-or-lose-it. If you sit all day without going out for something like a walk every so often then you could run into back or muscle problems, like lower back pain or musculoskeletal pain.
Eye Strain & Headaches
I’m sure after spending a few hours at the computer you’ve developed some sort of blurriness or headache. This is caused by your eyes having to be constantly focused or contracted while looking at the screen. Since you’re always focused on the screen your eyes don’t get to relax and de-contract, this can lead to vision issues if you don’t do anything about it.
Weight Gain
Snacking is a hard battle to fight, especially when you have a sort of schedule to it, like say when you go into your morning meeting you always eat a donut. This is always hard to break and it is always the worst problem to have because of the health risks. Extensive snacking can lead to weight gain or cholesterol problems.
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How can I Improve my Work Environment at Home?
Make sure you get up and move every hour or so, it doesn’t even have to be for very long, maybe just get up and refill your water. This will help you by getting you moving every so often and will give your eyes a quick break.
Take Walks Frequently
You might also want to consider going on quick walks during the day to get your body moving, maybe a quick 30 minute walk everyday.
Adjust Your Monitor
When using the computer make sure the screen is slightly below your vision when you look straight in front of you. Also make sure it is about an arms length away. Otherwise keep your keyboard in front of you with your mouse by the side.
Change Your Snacks
Snacking is hard to break, so try to limit how much you eat by putting some of your snacks into little baggies instead of bringing the whole bag of chips with you. You might also want to consider switching out some chips with vegetables or fruit.