Eat, drink and breathe for better productivity

Simple, smart choices can boost your creativity while reducing fatigue and stress

When you spend hours a day at work, it pays to make those hours healthy ones for both body and mind. Making some simple, smart choices throughout your workday can help boost your creativity and productivity while reducing fatigue and minimizing stress. 1. Fuel right. Vegetables, fruit, whole grains, lean proteins and healthy fats will provide you with a steady source of energy throughout the day, while offering the nutrition you need for long-term health. 2. Don’t ignore hunger. When you’re busy, it’s easy to push rumblings of hunger to the back burner, if you even notice them at all. When you finally come up for air mid-afternoon — or worse, on your way home — you realize that you’re ravenous and ready to eat whatever’s handy and filling, regardless of taste or nutrition. 3. Take your lunch break. Consciously disconnecting from work in the middle of your day can give you an energy boost and make your afternoon go more smoothly. If possible, eat lunch somewhere other than your desk — preferably outside, weather permitting, where you can get a dose of sunlight and fresh air. 4. Eat mindfully. If you must lunch at your desk, try to refrain from checking your email, doing work or talking about work. Take a few deep breaths, then eat slowly and savour your delicious, healthful meal. If you quickly inhale your lunch without noticing it, you deny yourself the full eating experience, which can leave you feeling like you need to nibble. 5. Manage the work-food environment. If you work outside the home, you spend a huge chunk of your day in the workplace, which makes that your second-most-important food environment (after your home). Packing your own nutritious and appealing lunch and snacks can help inoculate you against less-nutritious offerings from the vending machine or coworkers. 6. Stay hydrated. Even minor dehydration can cause headaches and make you feel tired and unable to concentrate, which isn’t good for your productivity or your well-being. As there are no hard-and-fast rules about how much to drink, it’s best to let thirst be your guide. One way to tell: if your urine is clear or very light, you’re probably doing just fine. 7. Move often. Our bodies are meant to move frequently, and that includes more than just planned exercise. If you sit at a desk all day, make a point to move at least every hour. Get up to fill your water glass, go talk to co-workers instead of emailing them, do a few stretches right at your desk, or step outside to take a short rejuvenating walk. 8. Breathe. Deep breathing is your body’s built-in energizer and stress reliever. Simply taking a few deep breaths can help you feel calmer, but if you have more time, sit and focus on your breathing for a few minutes. Try this at least a few times during the day to relax and recharge, more often if you notice you’re feeling stressed or tense. 9. Don’t multi-task. You may think you’re being super productive, but you’re not. Studies show that multitasking wastes more time than it saves. Even worse, it reduces our brain function over time. When you allow yourself to focus on a task or project without distractions, you’ll complete it better and faster. 10. Honour personal boundaries. Establishing at least some degree of balance in your universe is important to help you function at your best at work and home. Allowing work to bleed into your off-the-clock hours on a regular basis will ultimately make your performance suffer in both spheres.