Creating and Maintaining Balance: Work-Life Balance, Self-Care, and Mindfulness

Work-Life Balance

There are numerous benefits for finding a work, family, and personal life balance, and neglecting to focus on finding this balance can lead to many consequences in one’s physical and mental health. When it comes to physical health, working online can cause an individual to become very sedentary, and if he or she does not make intentional efforts to get up and move around, this can wreak havoc on one’s body. Being sedentary can lead to possible health issues, such as heart disease and high blood pressure (SpriggHR, 2020). Intentional, planned breaks and physical activity will not only provide health benefits; these breaks will also help one become a better employee and more productive in one’s career.

In the traditional workplace setting, employees could be found eating their lunches at their desks, while continuing to work. While this might be the reality for occasional deadlines that need to be met, this is not a practice that should become routine, whether in the office or working from a more non-traditional setting, such as a home office. There might be the temptation to take one’s lunch break or snack breaks whenever it seems convenient, but it is better practice to be intentional, scheduling snacks, movement breaks, and lunch breaks before beginning the workday. Scheduling these breaks helps twofold: it can also help with excessive snacking that could take place being in one’s own home and can create a more rigorous and productive work routine. Unlike at the office, where a person only has the food that he or she brought with him or her to work, in one’s own home, the possibilities for snacking can seem endless. This endless all-you-can-eat buffet can cause unintentional weight gain, especially when combined with a decrease in movement. To help avoid those extra pounds, creating a schedule of breaks and even planning for snacks and lunch can be extremely beneficial. Just like one would prep these items when going to an office, it is possible to do the same for one’s home office. Sticking to a schedule and only eating what has been prepared for the day will help avoid opening the snack cupboard! It is important to make sure that one’s schedule includes breaks for physical movement as well, which seems difficult to do once one gets to work, but it can be done!