Keep A Work-Life Balance To Meet Your New Year Fitness Resolutions

Having your new year health and fitness resolutions listed on a paper is not enough. You have to stay consistent and chase these goals to become your best self. No matter how involved you are in your work, it is essential to have a work-life balance. While you concentrate on your work, don’t let anything distract you.

Aditya Birla Health Insurance presents to you #LetTheMindGamesBegin. This is a 14-day health program on our Activ Living Community, where you will learn how to make up your mind to follow through on your new year health resolutions. Avoid giving up on this year’s resolution using expert advice in fitness, nutrition, and mindfulness. Here are some life hacks on how to have a healthy work-life balance.

What you need to know:

• Ways to manage time and maintain a work-life balance
• Time management techniques
• Desk exercises to stay active

Ways to manage time and maintain a work-life balance

Work-life stress has become a significant contributor to cortisol in humans. The ability to manage and give equal importance to both can cause stress and regular panic attacks and can even make you feel out of control. So often, to prove themselves, many individuals work late, take up more work than they can handle, do not reach out for help, or get so caught up in the daily hustle-bustle of life that they cannot spare a moment for their mental or physical well-being.

Follow the given tips on how you can optimize your work day, finish work on time, and acquire a good balance:

• Individuals spend so much time staring at screens that they don’t pay attention to anyone around them or their surroundings. Unplug from your social network, news feed, or work emails to spend time with your family and friends. If your phone is buzzing endlessly, turn off all your notifications if they are bothersome.
• Set boundaries. Leave your work in the office after you clock out. Draw a line between your personal and professional life.
• When in the office, attempt the difficult tasks first because you have the most energy in the morning. Don’t leave it for the end of the day because you will end up slacking off.
• Try practising the 90-minute work and 20-minute break routine to maximize productivity and improve focus so that your work is done well within time and you can get some rest in between.
• You can also try some breathing exercises to calm your anxiety and stress while working under pressure and handling bottleneck deadlines. Talk to your work best friend and learn to delegate work or to say NO to excess work if your proverbial plate is full. Finally, listening to relaxing deep-focus music can do wonders and help you get your head back in the game.
• Consider taking healthy and colorful food that makes you more invested in your meals so that you enjoy your lunch. Shorter lunch breaks and going on walks will help change the mundane environment and make you energetic for the second half.
• Cut down on your caffeine consumption, as it gives short-term energy spurts and causes problems in the long run.
• Take the stairs whenever you get the chance to stay physically active. You can even talk over the phone while walking to get some steps in and stay active. Keep yourself determined to finish the tasks at hand without procrastinating.

Time management techniques

Time management is the key to achieving a healthy work-life balance. You can swear by two highly sought-after time-management techniques: the Pomodoro Technique and the Eisenhower Matrix.

Pomodoro Technique

Try the Pomodoro Technique, a time management hack wherein you think in tomatoes rather than hours (Pomodoro in Italian means a tomato). This popular method asks you to alternate pomodoros, that is, focused work sessions, with frequent short breaks, for sustained concentration and to prevent mental fatigue. You can try this technique when you

• Have worked past the point of optimal productivity
• Get distracted by little things that derail your workday
• Have open-ended work (studying or research), which can take up a lot of time

This is how you go about the Pomodoro Technique to keep your mind fresh:

1. Pick any task
2. Set a 25-minute timer
3. Work on the given task until the time is up
4. Take a 5-minute break where you can try some stretches, walk around, or take deep breaths
5. After every 4 pomodoros, take a more extended 15-30 minutes break

Eisenhower Matrix

The Eisenhower Matrix, also called the Urgent-Important Matrix, can enhance your productivity by helping you prioritize tasks and agendas based on their importance and urgency. Also known as Eisenhower Box, this approach draws a 4-box square with the x-axis labeled Urgent and Not Urgent, while the y-axis represents Important and Not-Important. Group the items on your list from the top left corner of the box which require immediate action and attention.

• First Quadrant (upper left): urgent and important tasks that require action immediately.
• Second Quadrant (upper right): important but not urgent, and you can schedule the items in this box later.
• Third Quadrant (lower left): not necessary, but urgent items, and hence, can be delegated to others.
• Fourth Quadrant (lower right): neither important nor urgent so that you can remove these from your list.

Desk exercises to stay active

While you continuously have your head down and spine hunched, excessive screen time, be it on the phone or laptop, can make your body stiff. Therefore, try some exercises while seated or get yourself a standing desk. Here are some desk exercises or desk yoga you can try to refresh and refuel your mind:

Desk Pushups:

You can try these if you are working from home.

• Face your desk and keep your palms on it with your hands slightly wider than your shoulders.
• Lean against your desk and lower yourself until your chest almost reaches your desk, so you are in an inclined push-up position.
• Return to the starting position and repeat for at least 10 reps.

Seated Leg Extensions:

After sitting for a long time, try this workout to exercise your quads.

• Sit tall with your spine straight and your feet flat on the floor.
• Contract the muscle on the front of your upper thigh to lift one leg. Ensure it is parallel to the floor and straight in front of you.
• Hold for a second, then lower back to the starting position.
• Repeat 10 times on each side.

Posterior Shoulder Stretch:

• Tired of typing away on your laptop all day? Try this exercise.
• Hold one arm across your body.
• Pull your elbow into your chest with your other hand.
• You should feel your shoulder gently stretching.
• Try this on both sides.

Now that we have arrived at the last day of the 14-day health program, we hope the mind hacks to fulfill your new year fitness and health resolutions come true. Manifest your healthiest self in 2023.

Stay healthy with the Activ Living Community – your everyday health expert. Stay tuned for more lifestyle and fitness-related information. For more mind hacks, check out the #LetTheMindGamesBegin section here.