Teleworking and health: 7 pitfalls to avoid
2020, with COVID-19, was the most stressful year ever for employees, according to Oracle.
The study shows - among other things - an increase in various major factors:
- + 38% stress ;
- + 35% work-life imbalance;
- + 25% depression due to lack of socialization;
- + 14% loneliness.
And the acceleration of telecommuting over the past year, often "forced", has a lot to do with it.
In this article, we take a look at the 7 pitfalls to avoid when teleworking, to improve your well-being, your physical and mental health, and de facto your performance.
Pitfall no. 1: not respecting your needs
Chinese proverb: "The Tiger also needs sleep".
In China and India, the Tiger represents royalty and symbolizes the maintenance of justice. And this proverb points to the fact that everyone needs sleep, but not only...
What we're getting at here is that, no matter who we are, we all have vital physical and psychological needs, if we are to thrive and enjoy ourselves to the full.
Maslow put it very well with his pyramid of 5 levels of needs, and satisfying them is quite simply essential to our professional and personal balance, especially when we telework.
Our advice:
Take care of your needs by first identifying them by sphere of life, and then setting them up in "automatic watering" mode.
This "automatic watering" mode is simply the act of setting an essential need for yourself on a dedicated slot in your week (like going for a 30-minute walk in the forest every day after lunch) and sticking to it.
If you can't maintain it, postpone it, but - for whatever reason - don't cancel it! To make it easier, I invite you to fill in the table below.
Pitfall no. 2: not counting your time
Working outside the workplace is not easy for everyone, and some people can even significantly increase their working hours... But at what cost?
Indeed, this "extra" working time encroaches on other moments, including personal time often devoted to our essential needs, to our balance...
If we take stock of the 5 categories of time, we have..:
- Professional time: all activities whose purpose is to generate remuneration in the short or long term;
- Personal time: all activities that generate pleasure without any other benefit, such as playing video games;
- Time for oneself: activities that help us progress mentally, physically or even spiritually;
- Obligatory time: all mandatory activities such as administrative tasks or household chores;
- Wasted time: all activities that fill up our time without contribution, without being compulsory, without pleasure or displeasure, like looking at your Facebook profile 50 times on your smartphone in 1 hour.
Our advice:
Be aware of your time , especially the time you spend at work.
To do this, we invite you to:
- Take out a sheet of paper;
- Name all the moments of your past week;
- Quantify them in hours and/or minutes;
- Group them together when they recur;
- Organize them by time category according to the 5 categories seen above;
- Ask yourself: "Am I satisfied with the way my time is divided up?
If you're happy with the way your time is allocated, congratulations. If not, what can you do to balance your time?
Pitfall no. 3: Staying in your slippers
It's true that telecommuting from home can eliminate commuting times and increase "comfort" and "productivity".comfort" and "productivity", but often at the expense of a global scourge: lack of physical activity.
According to researcher Martine DUCLOS, scientific advisor to the French Ministry of Sport:
- Since 2012, physical inactivity has become the leading cause of avoidable death in the World, responsible for more deaths than smoking.
- According to the WHO, physical inactivity alone is responsible for 10% of deaths in Europe.
- Conversely, physical activity can significantly reduce premature mortality.
For example, adding 15 minutes of walking every day to your lifestyle reduces mortality by 14%, whether you're young or old, male or female, in good cardiovascular health or not, hypertensive or not, obese or not, diabetic or not.
Our advice:
Reduce the time you spend on sedentary activities (e.g. time spent sitting at the office or behind screens) to gradually achieve a total sedentary time between getting up and going to bed of less than 7 h/day.
To achieve this, we recommend "breaking up" sedentary times with breaks of at least one minute every hour, or 5 to 10 minutes every 90 minutes. During these breaks, you can move from a sitting to a standing position with a physical activity considered low in intensity (for example, getting up to put a book away, or walking slowly).
Pitfall no. 4: snacking at all hours
Teleworking is - unfortunately - more conducive to snacking.
And snacking all day long can take precedence over "real meals" , risking weight gain. The foods eaten are generally high in calories, and don't always satisfy the body's hunger for several hours. This leads to an "endless" circle of daily nibbling due to lack of satiety.
What's more, hunger is absent at the time of "real meals" and we end up "skipping" lunch and/or dinner. And skipping meals is also a factor in weight gain, with all the risks that entails.
Our advice: eat real, balanced meals:
- Stay well hydrated with water or herbal teas;
- Eat a varied diet;
- By eating seasonal and local produce;
- By eating non-denatured and, above all, unprocessed foods;
- By eating more plant-based foods than animal-based, and ensuring that every meal at lunch and dinner includes FULL starchy foods and vegetables;
- By eating both raw and cooked foods;
- By taking pleasure in eating and cooking, and not hesitating to do so with friends when the occasion arises.
Pitfall no. 5: not respecting your sleep
"Oh I'm teleworking tomorrow, I can watch Netflix longer tonight...". Who hasn't thought it and done it?
Good physical and mental health also depends on good sleep, especially since, according to scientists, quality sleep helps to :
- Extend lifespan;
- Strengthen memory and creativity;
- Stay slim and avoid cravings;
- Protect against cancer and dementia (Alzheimer's, etc.);
- Reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke, not to mention diabetes;
- Be happier, less depressed and less anxious.
Our advice:
To increase the quality of your sleep, we recommend :
- Stop using blue screens (smartphone, computer, tablet) 1 h before bedtime;
- Sleep in a room at around 18°C (or even lower);
- Sleep quietly and in the dark;
- Eat a low-protein dinner, rich in slow sugars, no more than 2 h before bedtime;
- Stop drinking caffeine 6 to 8 hours before bedtime.
And if you can take a 20-minute nap after lunch, you'll be in top form!
Pitfall no. 6: forgetting to relax
Under the pretext of being at home, many of us don't allow ourselves to take time for ourselves... some even forget to take breaks.
And you know as well as we do that it's impossible to be happy, healthy and productive without taking time out to relax.
No machine, no human being, is capable of living at a frenetic pace 24 hours a day. Even our planet has its moments of rest, which are none other than the seasons.
Our advice:
Relax by exercising, going for a walk in nature or practicing Dr. David O'Hare's 3.6.5 method of cardiac coherence, the benefits of which are fabulous:
- Three times a day;
- 6 inhalations, 6 exhalations;
- For 5 minutes.
To help you, the free version of the "Petit bambou" app is an easy way to get started! You can also visit YouTube, by typing in "Cohérence cardiaque 365".
Pitfall no. 7: not looking after your relationships
As we saw earlier, telecommuting can increase our level of loneliness if we don't do something about it; even more so if you live alone.
Sure, there are "visio" meetings, "conf calls"... But what about the real exchanges you have with your colleagues? What about talking to your loved ones?
A quick look back at the "Health" section: Harvard launched the longest human study ever conducted - and still ongoing, as data collection continues - to answer the question:
"What keeps us healthy and happy throughout our lives?"
For over 75 years, researchers followed the lives of more than 724 men.
So, what have we learned? What lessons have we learned from the tens of thousands of pieces of information gathered from these lives?
That the answer doesn't lie in wealth, fame, work or power.
The most obvious message from this 75-year study is that good relationships make us happier and healthier.
That's all there is to it.
Our advice:
Take the time to call, Skyper, Zoomer, WhatsApper every day at least one person outside of work you like or at least appreciate.
In conclusion, we believe that telecommuting is an excellent way to improve well-being, health and de facto performance. provided that full remote working is kept to a minimum, and that it is properly supervised, both from the point of view of the French Labor Code and the Human Factor aspect of the company.
Bonus: tips for employers to protect employee health
Our bonus tip for all employers wishing to improve their employees' teleworking conditions is to draw up a teleworking well-being charter, to ensure that it is read and understood by all, and above all that it is applied!
Prevention is better than cure... 😁
Article translated from French