Your workspace is your second home. Every day, you devote 8-hours to productivity and earning a living.

As you sip your morning coffee to energize your mood, the sedentary nature of your work drains you till the end of your shift. While you are chasing a deadline, you only notice the clattering sound of the keyboard, clicking of the mouse, flowing sweat in your head, and popping up messages from your email.

Suddenly, your system hangs up. As a result, stress dramatically blurs out your vision and exhausts your entire day.

Perhaps, this could be your day-to-day routine. However, a stressful workplace decreases your work productivity and detriments your physical and mental well-being. According to the American Institute of Stress, $300 billion in productivity is lost annually to employers due to workplace stress.

Would you like to work in an emotional taxing environment? Of course, not.

To make your workspace as your second home, here are three ways to boost healthy initiatives in your office.

Common Factors of Health-related Stress in the Workplace

According to the research conducted by Yale University School of Medicine, stress is one of the major causes of sudden death. More often, those people who have a history of certain irregular heart rhythms can be a potential victim to sudden death.

Moreover, the American Psychological Association suggests that stress links to the six leading causes of death: heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver and suicide.

While you work tirelessly, here are common causes of stress in your office:

Staring too long at the computer

Staring too long at the computer harms your vision.

Dr. Gardiner of Harvard Medical School explains that staring too long at your computer screen causes dry eyes due to a lack of blinking. If you don’t blink enough, your eyes dry out, causing blurry vision and discomfort. Also, eye strain occurs since the screen’s brightness negatively affects your focus on the screen without proper eyeglass prescription.

Nevertheless, the American Optometric Association (AOA) reveals that 50 to 90 percent of computer users suffer from visual symptoms of computer vision syndrome.

Prolonged sitting and other sedentary behavior

The World Health Organization identifies that 69 to 85 percent of people across the globe have developed chronic disease due to prolonged sitting.

While you are sitting in a slouch position for a long period, it leaves your spine sore, stiff, and in pain. Also, prolonged sitting may result in the formation of varicose veins caused by the blood to pool in the leg and the increased blood pressure in the valve of the vein.

Do you have bulging, twisting veins on the surface of your skin? Chances are those are varicose veins. Contact Elite Vein Clinic for a free consultation.

Unhealthy Eating Habits

As a golden rule says, “You are what you eat.”

According to one of the studies in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine suggests that employees in the workplace, who often purchase or eat fast food or any related unhealthy foods, are at risk of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. In other words, unhealthy eating habits cause micronutrient deficiencies.

For instance, obesity comprises the sustained imbalance between the total energy intake (food intake) and the energy expenditure through resting metabolism and physical inactivity.

Ultimately, now that you have a rationale for the common causes of stress in the workplace, what are your health initiatives to promote a stress-free work environment?

3 Ways to Boost Health Initiatives in the Workplace

Conduct an Eye Examination

Study shows that a routine eye examination reveals serious health conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, or even the risk of getting cancer. Conducting an eye examination boosts healthy initiative in the office.

In a comprehensive eye examination, an eye doctor observes and evaluates the health conditions of your blood vessels in your retina, which indicates the health of the blood vessels throughout your body.

The appearance of your retina blood supply and blood vessels determine if you have serious health conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and hypercholesterolemia. More importantly, eye examinations help an employee to reduce the risk of diabetic eye disease.

As an alternative, optometrists suggest that you need to rest your eyes every 15 minutes. Also, you need good lighting, you need to blink frequently and establish a proper distance in using a computer.

Partner with a Local Gym

Partnering with a local gym boosts healthy initiatives in the office through exercise and sports.

While sedentary work behavior such as prolonged sitting and sitting in a slouch position causes poor posture syndrome and obesity, an exhausted body needs to take some rest and invest to work out.

Moreover, working out improves your blood flow, normalizes your heart rate, and releases stress. Here, a study shows that working out increases your body hormones such as norepinephrine in the body that helps in proper brain functioning and enhances mood as well.

Nevertheless, in partnering with a local gym, you invest not only in working out but also teaming up with your co-workers in motivating a healthy lifestyle.

Promote Healthy Snacks in the Office

Food fuels a working body. But a conscious and well-prepared food in-take suffices the micronutrients that our working body needs. Being said, a recent study reveals that eating healthy foods in the office increases camaraderie and boosts everyone’s mood.

While fast foods satisfy your random cravings, you need to assure if such foods are giving you enough energy to supply for a holistic working activity. Especially that your normal working behavior is sedentary, you need to check if your food intake balances to your working habits.

Rather than eating junk foods and processed fast foods, you need to offer fruit juices, drink lots of water, share cooked vegetables, eat oatmeal, and other healthy options to energize your co-workers.

Key Takeaways

According to Dr. Nima Azarbehi, a Phoenix Varicose Vein Doctor,” The office is where many of us “live.” It’s important to set timers to initiate getting up and moving, stretching. Allowing healthy food and snack options, no junk foods. Setting up stress-free environments is also important in a busy intense office setting, for escape when the heat turns up.”

Promoting health initiatives in the office is a great way to reduce the emotional taxing and stressful workspace environment.

Staring too long at the computer, prolonged sitting, and eating unhealthy foods are common causes of stress in the office.

To combat stress, you need to remember three ways to boost health initiatives in your office:

1. Conducting an eye examination;
2. Partnering with a local gym; and
3. Promoting healthy snacks in the office.

Ultimately, your workspace is your second home through prioritizing health.