Is Working From Home Damaging Your Health?

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There are so many great benefits to working from home whether that’s as a business owner, a freelancer or a remote worker for a company. You can set your own schedule so if you have other responsibilities like a family, for example, it’s easy to work around that. Most people also find that they work more effectively when they can set their own schedule and create their own workspace because everybody works best in their own way. That’s why so many companies are moving toward remote workers and freelancers are finding a lot more work because businesses are moving towards hiring people on a temporary basis rather than bringing full-time employees on board.

It looks as if the business world is likely to change and people working from home will increasingly become the norm but is that really a good thing? While it does have a lot of benefits for businesses and individuals, there are some downsides to working from home. In the last couple of years, there has been a lot of research into the health problems associated with working in an office, but people are only just starting to looking into the potential health hazards caused by working from home. There are actually a lot of health issues that freelance workers and remote workers struggle with. If you work from home, these are the health problems that you need to be aware of.

Mental Health Issues

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Mental health issues are one of the biggest problems that people working from home have to deal with. There are a couple of different aspects of freelance work and remote work that can lead to increased problems with mental health. Firstly, it can be quite isolating and lonely if you’re just working on your own all of the time without any social interaction. When you’re dealing with the general stress of working, it’s good to have other people around to talk to like you would in a normal office situation. But when you’re working from home and you’re dealing with all of that on your own without anybody else to speak with, it can be difficult.

You also have to consider the fact that you might not get out of the house at all some days if you’re working all day and then you’ve got to look after the kids in the evening. A lot of people that work from home experience cabin fever and find that being stuck in the same place all of the time has an impact on their mental health. It’s also difficult to switch off from work when you live and work in the same place and that can lead to increased stress levels as well.

For freelancers, financial stability can be a big cause of stress and mental health issues as well. When you don’t have regular income each month, managing your finances can be incredibly tough and in the months where you don’t have as much work on, things can get incredibly stressful.

All of these things can pile up and have a serious impact on your mental health, leading to things like depression and anxiety, so it’s important that you take steps to stay on top your mental health. If you think that you may already be suffering, it’s important that you look into anxiety and depression treatments right away. Early intervention is so important and if you have talking therapies and speak with your doctor about medication, you can deal with the issue before it gets a lot worse.

You should also make an effort to interact with others on a regular basis and try to get out of the house a bit more so you don’t feel as isolated. That could be through meeting a friend for lunch or trying to have more video conferences with the office if you’re a remote worker. You could also try going out to a coffee shop to work some days so you’re not always sat in the same environment all of the time.

Weight Gain

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Weight gain is another big problem for people that work from home. There has already been a lot of research into office workers and the impact of sitting at a desk all day and the results aren’t great. We’re increasingly working in jobs where we are stationary all day and hardly move around at all which means that we gain a lot of weight quite easily and increase our risk of a lot of other diseases. But when you’re working in an office, you’re at least moving around when you travel to and from work, even if it isn’t that much. But when you work from home, getting up and walking down the stairs might be the most movement you do all day.

Eating habits in people that work from home aren’t always great either. When you’re working in an office, you don’t have access to a steady stream of food all day long like you do at home. Office workers still tend to have poor eating habits but when you work at home, it’s so easy to just pop into the kitchen and grab a snack which often leads to overeating and poor eating habits. When you combine that with a lack of movement, you’ve got a recipe for rapid weight gain.

If you’re already suffering from the effects of working at home and you’ve started gaining weight, you need to come up with a weight loss program and stick to it. That means cutting out the snacks or at least swapping the unhealthy snacks for something better, and doing regular exercise at least 3 times a week.

You should also try to make an effort to be more active in general. If you’re working out of the house on some days, you can take a walk to wherever you’re going. Trying to walk instead of taking the car wherever possible is a simple way to stay active. When you’re working, you should also get up and move around for a few minutes once every hour at least.

Working from home can take a toll on your health if you aren’t careful, but if you make these simple changes, you can stay healthy easily.