Healthy Week, Healthy Life

Let’s face it – we could all probably do more to be healthier. Often, we go through phases of clean eating and exercising, but very few of us keep this up all year round. However, we have derived some guidelines to help your employees stay healthy not just this week, but all year round.

Have breakfast

For a lot of us, breakfast is one of the first things we tackle after getting up. Apart from supposedly being the most important meal of the day,  breakfast is proven to encourage healthier eating, balance blood sugar levels, kickstart your metabolism, boost energy levels, promote heart health and stimulate the brain. However, for some people this couldn’t be further from a priority, as Shake your Wake Up found that a staggering 25% of people are skipping breakfast once or more during the week, with more than 13% never eating it. To ensure that your employees do eat a balanced breakfast, try providing healthy snacks that are available to buy, or provide free breakfast or fruit as a company perk.

5 a Day

It is recommended that we have at least five portions of fruit and vegetable per day, which is roughly 400g. According to the Food Statistics Pocketbook 2013, the average UK household now manages four portions per person per day, while the poorest households have just 2.9 on average. To combat this, there are many things employers can do. Help your employees by giving them things like dried or fresh fruit as a snack, or for lunch maybe vegetables with hummus.

Drink plenty

Other than staying hydrated, water contributes to much more of our bodily functions than we think. It lubricates the joints, delivers oxygen throughout the body, boosts skin health and beauty, cushions the brain, spinal cord, and other sensitive tissues, regulates body temperature and prevents kidney damage amongst many other things. Encouraging your employees to drink more water, whether they are sat at a desk or on the go, it is proven to improve performance. One study found that dehydration reduces performance in activities lasting longer than 30 minutes. Encourage your staff to stay hydrated by having a water cooler or tap in the office, or maybe set challenges with rewards so that remote employees can take part.

Get active

Getting fitter and maintaining a good exercise schedule is known to improve your overall health, but it is found that people who exercise regularly have a lower risk of developing many long-term conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and some cancers. Other than being notorious for your physical health, being active has been proven to improve mental health also. A recent study done by the Harvard Chan School of Public Health found that running for 15 minutes a day or walking for an hour reduces the risk of major depression by 26%, and showed that maintaining an exercise schedule can prevent you from relapsing. Having physical based incentives (in and out of the workplace) for your employees would help improve their level of physical activity while going about their daily tasks.

Sleeping well

Without sleep our bodies just wouldn’t function. A study in 2014 determined that people who go to bed later are more likely to be overwhelmed with repetitive negative thoughts, and were therefore less productive and unhappier the next day. If that wasn’t enough, earlier in 2008 another study found that early risers didn’t procrastinate as much as people who stayed up later. According to Limeade, the best ways to help your employees sleep better is to create sleep challenges, switching to blue-enriched white lighting in the office to help employees stay alert during the day, start a morning walking group or limit work hours.

If you would like to learn more about how your employees can work Hapi, book a demo today!