5 Healthy Hacks to Help You Eat Right, Exercise and Maintain Good Habits During Your Busy Schedule Don't focus so much on your work that you forget about treating your body right.
By Kc Agu
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Entrepreneurs are by necessity busy creatures.
While an entrepreneur's work ethic may be gratifying to our psyche and bank accounts, it can pose serious challenges -- especially health-related ones.
Personally, I tend to stretch myself beyond healthy limits simply to meet hectic work demands. In this busy mode, I always forget about some healthy things that humans are supposed to do to live. I don't do it deliberately, I just lose track of things when I'm busy meeting diverse business goals.
These stuffs we neglect accumulate and form unhealthy habits that could cause us harm. While the goal is to make money, the primary one will be to stay healthy enough to enjoy the wealth. So in essence, how do we live healthy while juggling through our hectic businesses?
These five health hacks will help you.
Related: 11 Habits of Truly Happy People
1. Drink more water.
The benefits of water are immense and well known.
For entrepreneurs who don't know it yet, water helps in reducing weight loss gained from sitting down for long periods. It boosts your energy. It helps with stress-related headaches, sleeplessness and more. There are literally hundreds of reasons why water is good for your body's proper functioning. But, from personal experience, it not that you don't know these little truths, like me you simply don't remember to do the habit.
So, how can you make sure you drink more water when you're too busy to remember?
Use water apps for Android, iOs, and Google Play to remind you. Take a glass of water last thing at night and place another by your bed for first thing in the morning. This may sound weird, but it works. If you tend to forget to drink water in the morning period, put the water bottle directly on top of your phone. No wrink, no phone.
At work, you can have a huge, off-color bottle of water beside your desk with a cup for easy access. If you are always on the road, make sure you have a water bottle and paste a "Drink Water" sticky note somewhere to help you remember.
2. Eat right.
Most entrepreneurs are either too busy to eat at all, let alone eat right.
Grabbing a candy bar or a tray of junk food and washing it down with a can of diet soda may be quick and stave off hunger pangs, but in the long term, it will cause damage to your body and your mind.
Here's how to make sure you eat right despite your busy schedule.
Schedule into your calendar a time where you can research quick, tasty and healthy options. Once you know what you should eat, you won't overthink and end up going for junk.
On the weekend, try to create time when you can prepare your meals in advance for the coming week. This is where the refrigerator becomes every entrepreneur's best friend.
If you can afford it, employ the services of healthy and tasty food delivery providers to deliver to your home or office.
If you have to eat out, pick a healthier alternative to your usual spots. If you cannot make that choice, stick with healthy options on the menu.
Related: 5 Habits of the Wealthy That Helped Them Get Rich
3. Exercise daily.
Of course, we cannot talk about health without including exercise. Exercise has been proven to boost critical reasoning, confidence, retentive memory and enhanced general well-being.
The benefits of exercise are well known by everyone, including workaholics. However, creating time for it and actually doing it is a totally different ball game.
How can you incorporate exercise into your busy regimen?
Start by walking to work if you can. If you can't, or you don't because you stay at home, set time aside and just walk around in the morning and evening. Walk if you are going on your lunch break. Ditch the elevator and take the stairs. Read as you cycle. Dictate notes on the treadmill. Plan walking meetings with your staff instead of sitting around a conference table.
Also, be technologically savvy and take advantage of fitness apps. There are hundreds of them on the net and most of them are free.
4. Leverage different working positions hack.
Dr. James Levine of Mayo Clinic said, "Sitting is more dangerous than smoking, kills more people than HIV and is more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death."
Sitting for long hours has been linked to numerous health challenges. Apart from the usual weight gain or obesity, it causes back pain and other serious health related issues.
If you have to sit to work, do it properly – upright, back straight, feet flat on the ground. Adjust your chair to properly align with your desk, or vice versa. Work your core muscles by using an exercise ball or stool.
Get up and walk every hour of full scale work. For entrepreneurs with Plantar Fasciitis, switch between sitting and standing positions regularly to avoid tendon stiffness.
For those who sit all day at work, you can hack it by assigning different work postures for different type of work. For example, you can decide to always stand when you are dictating or writing down anything or use standing desks when you want to work on your laptop.
Related: Habits of the World's Wealthiest People (Infographic)
5. Disconnect from work.
It is so easy to get engrossed in work as an entrepreneur that it's easy to unconsciously get mentally tense and lose overall focus.
Too much mental tension is counterproductive. Refresh and refocus your mental and intellectual concentration by totally disconnecting from work for fifteen minutes every three hours.
Work in blocks. Set out particular time to shut off the system and take a walk. These short breaks will clear your mind and sharpen your focus when you return to work.
