With the Coronavirus Pandemic showing no signs of immediate conclusion, the new normal of Work-From-Home (WFH) and online studies is no longer something new and is sure to continue for at least for the next few months. On one side, while WFH is contributing immensely in breaking the human-to-human spread of the infection, on the flip side, recent research points out that the body isn’t taking it all well.
While we are sitting in our rooms, gazing at the screens of mobile phones and laptops, reading this article, let us listen to what our bodies have to say regarding spending days under a single shed.
- Stress and Burnout
Work from home and online classes can be much more stressful than the conventional ones if enough precautions aren’t taken. When you are in the comfort of your room, you tend to take things less seriously and automatically become less time-bound since you don’t need to clock out at 5.
It leads to postponement of work that increases the length of the to-do list, making the job appear more stressful. With several other tasks to attend to in our house, we are often distracted multiple times, decreasing our efficiency, thus causing burnout when stress becomes common.
Having a proper schedule, working only during the usual work hours, and minimizing distractions like frequent use of social media while working or studying can be effective solutions to prevent stress and burnout.
- Stress Eating and Obesity
Stress Eating has become a common issue for most people adapting to work from home, especially the students. Studies have shown that stress causes the person to crave high-calorie foods, preferably junk and fast foods rich in carbs and fats. The ratio is directly proportional: the more stressed you are, the more carbs and fats you would want to consume.
As students and working professionals are mostly seated throughout the day, they are much less active than usual. It leads to underutilization of the surplus calorie intake, slowly resulting in obesity.
Buying less ready-to-eat food or packaged snacks, keeping fresh fruits and veggies in the refrigerator, and following a proper diet strictly with 1 or 2 cheat days a week can become the roadblock to obesity these days.
- Back and Neck Strain
Most of us do not have a proper working setup in our homes, leading to strained muscles in parts of our bodies. The adverse effects of improper sitting posture on our back and the neck are heavily ignored. It leads to tight muscles of the neck and causes back pain and damage in the long run.
Also, prolonged improper posture habits can lead to diseases such as spondylitis, decreased metabolism, and curved backbone, to name a few. Alterations such as having the screens at your eye level, a 15 minutes break after every 60 or 90 minutes, and having a proper working setup with a table and chair of adjustable heights works the best.
- Insomnia
Almost all working professionals and students working from home have to stare at their screen for a massive part of the day that emits blue light. The blue light focuses in front of the retina, making the retina work harder to get the image, stressing it out, and interfering with the secretion of chemicals responsible for sleep.
Other factors such as stress, overworking tendency, and muscular pain originated from improper sitting habits can also cause insomnia in the long run. Keeping electronics away at least 2 hours before bed, meditation, and performing breathing exercises just before getting on the bed will help you get a good sleep.
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