3 bad habits that we’ve all developed because of working from home in 2020

Coronavirus has changed so many things in the short time since it invaded our world. One key change courtesy covid-19 is the work from home culture, which has become a hallmark of the pandemic. Social distancing is an important part of the preventive strategy to steer clear of the novel virus. Hence, a lot of office spaces have shifted online which means that employees like us have been working from home for close to a year now!

What most of us are not quite taking into account as we stay brave in the face of a pandemic and continue with our work life is that the WFH norm has interrupted our sense of routine. With no regular schedule to follow and general instability about the future, our natural body clock has also been affected.

In fact, here are three things we’re all guilty of doing when we’re working from home but need to change in order to stay healthy:

1. Not having fixed timings for meals

Remember the morning rush back in the day when we used to go to the office? We’d either eat breakfast too quickly or just pick up some fruit before rushing out of the house or eat a sandwich from the office cafeteria. A couple of minutes here and there but our meal timings were pretty much the same every day.

Working from home has disturbed our sense of routine and there’s no fixed time for when we consume our meals. It could be due to a meeting or a household chore that needs to be taken care of, but most of us have been unable to fix our meal timings.

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If there’s a huge gap between two meals or you’re not eating the quantity your body requires, it will lead to low energy levels that have a direct impact on your ability to focus. What’s more, if you’re unable to fix your meal timings, your whole body will get affected. From your digestion to your metabolism, everything will go for a toss. It could eventually lead to lifestyle ailments such as obesity and diabetes.

2. Having a disturbed sleep cycle

There’s a reason why people say it is important to sleep for six to eight hours each night. The ‘beauty’ sleep won’t just ensure that you stay away from the dreaded issue of dark circles but also give your body some much-needed rest to restart the next day on an energetic note.

This pandemic, however, has been extremely tough on most of us and has created situations that are causing us to lose our sleep. From the stress about the instability to the workload, we’ve not been able to set a proper sleep cycle.

Now, a lack of sleep can lead to reduced focus and cause you to become irritable. This directly affects the quality of your work and your personal interactions. Moreover, it is believed that reduced sleep can trigger inflammation in the body which can lead to multiple physical ailments.

3. Lack of boundaries between your personal and professional lives

We all try to strike a balance between the personal and the professional. Since the advent of coronavirus, our homes have become our offices. We’re taking meetings while sitting on the sofa, completing presentations while sitting at the dining table and the study tables that haven’t been used in years are finally finding the company of our laptops.

It did seem like a comfortable way of working initially but it has slowly eaten into our personal space. Our mind has been associating the bedroom more with work than with leisure time. What’s more, some of us have also experienced our work hours go up and extend beyond the usual. All these factors leave us with very little time to cater to our personal lives. This has definitely affected our mental health and made coping up with the pandemic even more difficult.

So, ladies, leave behind these common habits to ensure you’re healthy, especially during this pandemic.