Staying healthy becomes difficult when you work 40+ hours per week. Striking a healthy work-life balance is important and a huge part of it is keeping your body in shape. Here are a few ways you can maintain your health even when you have to work long hours.

How to Stay Healthy at Work

Pack Your Lunch

One of the main reasons people become obese or unhealthy is their lunchtime diet. Many workers grab fast food or order in from a restaurant because it’s easy and convenient. However, this is not a very healthy way to eat.

Instead of eating a greasy burger for lunch, pack something healthy. Bringing your own food to work will not only help your waistline, but also your wallet. You can pack a salad, healthy sandwich or one of many other healthy options. (Let us know in the comments what your favorite guilt-free lunch is!)

Drink Water

Hydration is very important to your productivity and your overall health. While at work, it may be common to grab a soda or drink coffee, but neither will keep you hydrated. In fact, both coffee and soda will have the opposite effect and contribute to your dehydration, which may lead to laziness and poor health overall.

Make sure you are drinking plenty of water at work. You can even set a goal and use a water bottle with measurements on it to ensure you get enough water. If you need to jazz it up a bit, you can add flavorings or freeze blended fruit as ice cubes for your water.

Stretch While At Your Desk

Sitting at a computer for hours every single day can lead to serious medical issues. It’s not healthy to sit for long periods of time. However, you may need to sit to get your work done.

There are ways to make sure you stay healthy, even with a job requiring you to sit in front of a computer quite a bit. Stretching is one of the best ways, and you can start by using an alarm to remind you to stretch every two hours. After you get used to it, you may want to increase your stretching to once every hour.

Choose the Stairs

Taking the stairs instead of an elevator helps with your health. It provides an easy way to get your heart pumping and your blood flowing.

Park Further Away

We are trained to want to take the closest parking spot, but it’s not doing us any favors. Parking further away will allow you to get a little extra exercise from the longer walk to and from your car.

Take Hourly Fitness Breaks

Every hour, you can take a break for a quick exercise. There are many exercises you can do in just a few minutes that can really benefit your health. An easy way to get a little fitness in at work is with the SimplyFit Board. This is a balance board you can literally stand on for a few minutes and gain health benefits.

Walk During Breaks

If you get to take breaks, you should use the time to take a walk. Instead of surfing the internet, playing on social media or texting friends, step outside and take a walk. Even if you don’t go outside, you can walk around the office and actually interact with co-workers outside of email.

Keep Plenty of Healthy Snacks Available

Snacking on junk from a vending machine isn’t going to help your productivity or your health. Most vending machine items are packed with sugar and artificial garbage. Instead, keep healthy snacks, such as fruit and nuts handy. This will help you keep your glucose balanced, which will allow for a better and more productive workday.

Graze All Day

Often, we allow our glucose to bottom out right before lunch. This is part of why we feel sluggish in the afternoon and become less productive. If you graze (snack) throughout the day and eat a smaller lunch, you will keep your glucose balanced. This will help boost your metabolism and keep you productive all day long.

There are several great ways to stay healthy even if your job requires you to sit quite a bit. You can use the tips above to create a checklist to stay healthy at work. Print it out for each day of the week. This will help you stay on track, remain healthy and become more productive at work.