Three Ways to Take Care of Yourself While Working 9 to 5

Posted on Tuesday, June 6th, 2017

When you shift from the student lifestyle—irregular hours, shift work, and maybe some weeknight partying—into a 9 to 5 lifestyle, you may have a bit of a rocky transition period. It’s a lifestyle change with vastly different norms, and you may find yourself exhausted, or having trouble concentrating for a full work day. This is normal, and you’ll acclimatize quickly.

But working 9 to 5 can also be a challenge in terms of taking care of yourself. If you’re in an office, sitting for eight hours straight and being in easy reach of fast food can have an impact on your physical health. You may also find work-related stress coming home with you and affecting your mental health, too.

Below, we look at ways to smooth the transition to a 9 to 5 lifestyle, and how to keep healthy while working.

Schedule Your Time

One of the biggest skills you can learn when starting a 9 to 5 job is time management, and not just in regard to completing your work-related tasks. Practicing time management in your whole life is an important step to finding a healthy work-life balance.

It is important to schedule your time to ensure that you make space for non-work related activities. It is also important to schedule in some you time, time to be alone and work through whatever happened during the day at work. Meditating, working out, doing something creative—whatever works for you, prioritize it. Make sure you have some time to yourself.

Having some variety between work, social life, and alone time is a key part of being balanced and healthy.

Start Meal Planning

You’re busy and tired and it’s lunchtime and you haven’t packed a lunch, but there’s a McDonald’s downstairs. It is super easy to work through lunch or pick up some junk food at noon, and sometimes that’s okay, but to make a habit of it may start to make you feel unwell. How do you get around it?

Meal planning might be the answer for you. It takes some pre-planning, but setting out your meals for the upcoming week will help you avoid that inevitable “What am I going to eat for lunch today?”.

You don’t need to be too intense about it. Just having your lunch ideas plotted out ahead of time, and making them the night before, can make your work lunch times infinitely healthier.

Get Outside

This is an especially easy one during the summer, but it’s important in the winter too: go outside and get some fresh air. During lunch hour, or even during quick 5-minute breaks, moving around and getting outside will really help your happiness levels at work.

Taking the time to walk around outside during lunch is also proven to have all kinds of benefits. Studies show that—beyond all the long-term benefits of exercise—taking a walk at lunchtime has immediate effects on your brain. It’s a mood booster and helps reduce stress. So, if you can, go take a walk. You’ll work better if you do.

The methods you use to build a healthy environment at work will vary depending on your industry, corporate culture, and personal preferences. You will eventually figure out what things work for you to make you feel happy and accomplished during a work day. But these three tips are a good place to start to get comfortable with the 9 to 5 lifestyle.

Are you a student interested in taking a co-op program? An employer interested in hiring an Algonquin College co-op student? Get in touch with us in the co-op office! Visit our website at https://www.algonquincollege.com/coop/, connect with us at coop@algonquincollege.com or call us at 613-727-4723 Ext.7623. You can also follow us on Twitter @AlgonquinCoop.


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