Working from home affords you a great opportunity to transform your health. In fact, it is a surprising reality that many people struggle with health and fitness, after transitioning out of the office to home-based remote work. No doubt, getting healthy and fit is not a straightforward endeavour while working from home. Yet, it is more than possible. You may need to re-learn the ropes, especially if you have been cooped up in an office for many years.

Working from home opens up new and ‘hidden’ possibilities of working and living. These are advantages that are out of reach within a conventional 9-5 workplace, and they are perhaps even unknown to some.

Here are some ways you can undoubtedly boost your physical life, while you work from home.

1. Replace the commute with “health hours”.

Commuting sucks. Commuting is one daily activity that silently sucks away your joy, energy, productivity, and spare time on a daily basis. It is something we tolerate by default and we fail to question its necessity, often because we have no other choice. Getting rid of the commute is one of the greatest advantages of working from home. 

If you tend to feel sluggish and tired, it might be due to your daily commute. Numerous studies have found that workers who commute to work experience more stress on the mind and body. Long-distance commuters (who travel more than 45 minutes each way) are more prone to headaches, backaches, elevated blood sugar, and develop a greater risk of depression. Even 30 minutes of daily one-way commuting is linked with greater stress and anxiety levels.

Without the mandatory commute, we experience lower stress levels, physically and mentally. Basically, eliminating the commute gets rid of the associated health risks. 

Without having to commute, we can replace daily commuting time with health time. While office workers experience how work takes a toll on health, working from home leaves us no excuse to slack off physically. The “health hours” we planned for but perpetually did not have can now be added back in. We can block out and prioritise this time for our bodies. Use it to hit the gym, lift weights, or run around the neighbourhood. This is your chance to reclaim the time you need to get into shape.

Without the commute, there is also no packing, no need to put makeup, and no indecision over our work attire for the day. When you add up the hours availed to you, it leaves little excuse to neglect health and fitness.

There is much more that we can do with the extra hours freed up. You can use the extra time to work on your side projects, hobbies, relationships, and health.

2. Lower stress by reducing necessary time/money spending.

When you work in an office environment, there are certain expenses that you repetitively incur since you find it hard to eliminate them. These are “hidden” expenses that add up and accumulate each and every day. For instance, you would get your morning coffee (and whatever else you need) when you commute to work. On a daily basis, you would buy your lunch (unless you save money by bringing prepared meals to work). Each week, you might need to socialise with colleagues after work over drinks. There are also different sets of work attire you need to maintain and invest in. 

These are daily events that drain not only our wallets, but our mental space. Thankfully, many of these expenses would be made unnecessary when you work from home, because you are no longer forced to spend by default. You do not have to commute, but you could choose to go for a drive if you like. You could spend money on lunch, but you could also choose to make your own meal.

This freedom of choice is stress relieving. It helps to have more time to do what we want and love. It helps to see more money left over each month. Improved cash flow leads to a greater peace of mind. Improved cash flow gives you the option of developing other ways to use your money productively, which can of course be redirected into health investments.

3. Take advantage of improved health autonomy.

Improved health autonomy is the improved freedom and ability to make better choices for your health. 

When you are cooped up in an office, you do not have much environmental control despite the best efforts of your willpower. There are distractions, stimulations, and temptations you have to put up with. When you work from home, you are free from the BS and limitations of the office. Here are some areas you have more control over: food, noise levels, health habits, and the freedom to resolve pain.

Control over Food Choices

When there are cookies and chips in your office, it is hard to resist them, especially under the pressure of colleagues and socialisation. Your diet may include refined carbs, high sodium snacks, your colleagues’ doughnuts, and drinks after work. In contrast, working from home makes it much easier to grab something from the fridge and make a healthy meal. If you shop for groceries in advance, you have less decision fatigue over the meals and snacks you should prepare.

In other words, you are able to

• Shop for groceries in advance, even during the day
• Prepare meals in advance
• Prepare healthy meals
• Avoid routine sacrifices to your diet due to environmental influences, such as your office’s vending machine and colleagues

Since working from home allows you to take charge of your diet, it leaves no excuses for making habitual bad choices.

Control Noise Levels

In terms of noise in a workplace, you may be exposed to the sounds of open floor offices and the voices of colleagues. The mental and physical stresses from your environment get transferred to you. When you work from home, you have control over your workspace. Ultimately, you can find ways to reduce the noise you experience or deal well with family interruptions.

Improve Lifestyle Habits

When we work in the workplace, we are forced to endure long hours of sitting, and this gets worse if you have micro-managers as bosses. You may not be free to leave the office at any time. In fact, you may sit through the afternoon and endure the harsh air-conditioning. Sometimes, it is tough to clock in a jog or a walk, even when you are exhausted from work.

What’s worse is the fact that sitting is associated with all sorts of health dangers. When you sit for prolonged periods, the physical stress you place on your body increases your risks of cardiovascular disease, weight gain, and early death.

In terms of health habits, there are multiple ways you can improve your health while working from home:

• Wake up early for a run, and get home in time to work on your computer
• Break up long periods of sitting by walking around your apartment while taking breaks
• Invest in a simple standing desk
• Improve blood circulation and relief body pain with ergonomic solutions

Taking calls on your phone allows you to walk around your apartment or your neighbourhood. In fact, you can make it a habit to walk or stand when you do certain types of tasks that do not require you to be in front of your computer. Then, you will avoid sitting all the time by default, and you will avoid losing your health the way people habitually do. 

For example, walk while making a certain set of calls with clients, or stand up when you reply to emails in the afternoon in order to help you “blitz” through the post lunch slump.

Simply breaking up prolonged periods of sitting can yield great dividends to your health.

Improve Comfort, Remove Pain

Besides prolonged sitting, workplaces create lifestyle problems that must be solved ergonomically. Little did we know that working at a desk of the wrong height could have been causing our neck strain and vision problems. Perhaps, you may have developed shoulder or wrist pain due to the long hours of typing at an awkward angle. 

In such cases, working from home allows you the freedom to make ergonomically informed choices, with adjustable tools that best suit your needs. For instance, you can switch to an adjustable chair, use an ergonomic keyboard tray for typing, and an adjustable desk setup for sitting and standing. 

There are many versatile tools in the market, each designed to solve specific ergonomic issues and stop specific types of pain. You get to do your research and experiment with a few best solutions for your personal situation.

4. Use flexible working hours to keep healthy and fit.

Working from home enables us to operate under a more flexible schedule. We do not have to sit at our desk from early mornings to early evenings, and we are free to take breaks, surf the net, and work on side projects as long as we complete our work tasks. The question to ask yourself is: Have you used flexible scheduling to your advantage?

Having more flexibility can cause you problems if you lack daily structure. Firstly, you can get distracted and procrastinate on urgent or important tasks. Then, you inflict on yourself pressure to catch up on work and you might do so at a haphazard, chaotic rate. You are edging towards burnout every time this happens if procrastination becomes your habitual tendency. Secondly, if you are not the type of person who keeps to a consistent schedule, having flexibility could mean that your days will become badly structured with unclearly defined working hours.

As you can see, flexibility, coupled with a lack of daily structure, can destroy your work life balance, and its effects can take a toll on your mental and physical health.

When you work from home, you need to use flexibility to your advantage, not to your disadvantage. The above two problems can take a toll on your health, but they can be avoided if you do the following:

• Break up your work into smaller chunks to avoid procrastination and burnout. For example, pause intense writing and get some dishes done. Head back to your computer to reply to some emails — give your brain a break before resuming the intense writing.
• Use timeblocking to schedule your day. Have your day planned out on a calendar, with different blocks of time set aside for various tasks.
• Do not mix your “work” and “home” spaces. Even when you work from home, you should set clear boundaries between work and home. If you work in a bedroom office, it is all about organization and learning the essential habits and strategies to stay productive.

Overall, the health benefits of working from home certainly outweighs the risks, largely due to the increased flexibility and time. 

When you are seated for 6-8 hours in the office, fatigue exists not only in the body, but also mentally and emotionally. You are not free to nap. You cannot freely express yourself. Unless you are lucky, your office desk is probably not located near a window and you may lack access to natural light from the sun.

When you work from home, you can catch the sunny periods of the day by going outside to enjoy the fresh air. You can run, walk, do stretches, or meditate. You can be a lot more flexible with your gym time. You can break up time however you like so as to enjoy the day and be healthy and productive too.

5. Boost and stabilise your energy levels (like never before).

Another hit you suffer when working in a company office occurs to your energy levels. In terms of energy, you will likely suffer due to these reasons:

• Engaging in some form or another of office politics
• Being forced to commute to/from work and enduring its physical stresses
• Having to meet the implicit or explicit demands of coworkers in flesh
• Being monitored or micro-managed
• Being confined to the rules of the workplace
• Having to sit at your desk most of the time
• Having limited control over when you eat, exercise, or socialise

After work, most office workers are exhausted and have little time to be productive or work on side projects. As the days pass, one “adapts” and just focuses on getting by and completing office work. Motivation is depleted and there is no pressure to become self-motivated.

Fortunately, you can have more energy by working from home — simply due to the flexibility and choices you have.

Improve your energy levels when working from home via these tactics:

• Practicing intermittent fasting and bulldozing through work in the morning, when you are the most energetic
• Not skipping meals because you’re too “busy” — this excuse becomes invalid when you work from home
• Eating meals high in protein and unsaturated fat
• Swapping high sodium snacks for healthier alternatives like macadamia nuts, walnuts, seaweed crisps, and dark chocolate
• Stock up black coffee and tea varieties in your home
• Alternate between sitting and standing at your desk every 30 minutes (and get used to this)
• End the day before getting overworked and transition into a relaxed state

See your energy levels go up by 25-50%, simply by implementing some of these lifestyle habits. Experiment to see what works best for your situation.

When working in a company office, you lack control over these variables and put your health under strain. When you unintentionally starve yourself for a long period of time, you tend to make bad food choices. Likely, you will choose highly refined carbs and sugars to get an immediate energy boost, instead of stabilising your energy levels with complex carbs, protein, and healthy fats like fish, nuts, and seeds.

When you work from home, you can implement structure by prioritising your diet just like how you would prioritise your work, and schedule your meals on your calendar. Neglecting your meal timings, macros, and components will set you back on your health, likely triggering weight gain.

Closing Thoughts

Working in an office carries its downsides, which many of us have been used to. After all, poor lifestyle habits are difficult to get rid of. Yet, working from home opens up new possibilities and autonomy we would never have in an office environment. Definitely, you can reap the health benefits of working from home if you choose to exploit these advantages.