Maintaining a healthy body should be a goal for all of us. You don’t have to be obsessed with working out, counting calories, and eating right to keep your body in good health, but a little bit of effort and work will go a long way. Even small amounts of effort and changes to our routines can have substantial and long-lasting impacts on our health. Finding the time to maintain a fit and healthy body can be a challenge when you work a full-time 9-to-5 job, though.
Bring Your Own Lunch
Eating the right things can be a particular challenge when you have a full and busy working day ahead. Unhealthy convenience food is often the choice of 9-to-5 workers looking to save some extra time for relaxing during their lunch break. Convenience food isn’t necessarily bad as an occasional indulgence, but wouldn’t it be better if you could save that indulgence for evening and weekends rather than to save some extra time at work? Bringing your own lunch is a great way to give yourself the choice of tasty and healthy options, and save even more time since you won’t have to head out and find something at lunchtime. Using meal-prep techniques, you can easily prepare a week’s worth of lunches in only a few hours at the weekend, meaning all you have to worry about during the week is what you are going to do with the extra time.
Carry A Large Bottle of Water
Water is essential for life and therefore a healthy body; we are after all made from 60%+ water. Drinking water regularly throughout the day helps your body operate at its best, making you feel more energised and focused, which has the added benefit of lowering stress. Even if your workplace has easy access to a water cooler, kitchen, or fountain, remembering and motivating yourself to go and take regular drinks can be hard—regular drinking is better than waiting till you feel thirsty. Bringing a large bottle of water from home ensures that you will always have water on you and will help to develop the habit of taking a regular drink. You can also add flavourings or fruit to your bottle if you want something a little more interesting.
Squeeze A Workout In
Regular daily exercise is one of the best ways to improve your overall health and wellbeing. Not only does regular exercise have direct general health benefits like improving circulation and cardiovascular health, but it is also a great way to stay at your target weight and reduce your stress levels. Fitting regular daily exercise in can be hard when you work 9-to-5, most of us want to relax outside of working rather than doing more work, albeit of a different sort. Regular exercise doesn’t have to be long or intensive, though. A short walk or workout squeezed into your day in the morning, at lunch, or after dinner provides you with all the benefits you need. You can even incorporate it into existing activities by deciding to walk home from work rather than driving or using public transport. It doesn’t matter so much what form the exercise takes, or how intensive it is, so much as that you get up and move at some point each day.
Exercise at Home
In addition to lighter every day exercise, doctors and health professionals recommend you perform at least an hour of intensive activities a week. Finding the time to go to the gym or head out for an additional intensive workout can be hard, and risks eating into what little leisure time you have. Exercising at home allows you to get a more intense workout while minimising the effort and time it takes, even if it’s going for a few laps in the pool, it will make a huge difference to your health.
Get To Bed Early
A good night’s rest is a core element to keeping your body healthy, especially if you are working long and stressful days. Generally, it is recommended to get 6 – 8 hours sleep a night, with anything under or over risking long-term health problems. Sleep has many great direct health benefits, allowing your body to recharge itself, but it also has some excellent secondary benefits. The earlier you can get to bed, the earlier you can get up giving you more time in the mornings to fit in exercise or a healthy breakfast in. Lack of sleep has also been shown to cause an increase in stress levels which take a toll on all aspects of our health.
It can often feel like a challenge to put in the extra work to stay fit and healthy after a long day at your job. It’s something that requires conscious effort and thought, at least in the beginning. As time goes on, however, the tasks you perform to maintain your health will become second nature, an automatic part of your routine requiring very little effort and thought. The work you put in is worth it, though. A healthy lifestyle and body pays us back in immeasurable amounts both in the short-term and as we age. There is no better time to start focussing on a healthier body than the present.
