Wellness Tips When Working From Home

In these challenging times, it is important to stay grounded and assured. Many of you are being asked to adapt to a new way of working from home. You may be experiencing changes in your social life, home routine, or your work schedule. But, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming! With a few simple shifts, working from home can be part of a new, holistic rhythm that feels just as productive and healthy as being in the office.

As Sprinklr’s in-house wellbeing coach, my job is to help employees easily incorporate healthy habits and wellness into their daily workday. I’ve recently been offering Mindful Moment sessions three times a day virtually to employees worldwide. These sessions are 15 minutes long and include stretching, breath work, a guided mediation and a moment of gratitude.

In addition to adding mindfulness into your daily schedule, here are a few other strategies you can use to jumpstart your journey towards a healthy working from home mindset and environment:

1. Create structure & routines in the work day

In order to feel centered throughout these uncertain times, it’s important to create new structures and routines. Consistency, predictability, and follow through will help shape your day and give you a sense of normalcy. A few ways to create a routine:

• Wake up at the same time each day. This will ensure that you feel rested and productive throughout your day.
• Write down a daily schedule. Make a list of tasks and activities that need accomplishing, and determine when you want to tackle them. This will help you stay feeling motivated as you work, and accomplished at the end of the day.
• Communicate your schedule with your colleagues and family. Clearly setting your schedule will prevent you from blurring the lines between home life and work. It will also prevent the strain of miscommunications from burdening your relationships.

2. Cultivate Daily Wellness Rituals

Including daily health rituals helps you create needed structure. Daily wellness rituals help to mark the beginning and end of the day to ensure a separation of work and home, and they allow planned breaks to keep you relaxed and positive. For these reasons, incorporating physical, mental, and environmental rituals into your daily routine is highly worthwhile.

• Physical health ritual: Move your body! Choose an activity that will get your body moving and commit to doing it every day. Even if it’s just getting up to take a walk, it’s deeply important to get your blood flowing everyday. This promotes focus and embodiment, and keeps restlessness at bay.
• Mental health ritual: Schedule 15-20mins a day to focus on your mental wellbeing. A daily breathwork or meditation practice can enhance focus and positivity, and reduce stress. Organizations can also consider launching programs that will enable people to make these rituals possible. At Sprinklr, our 15 minute wellness breaks 3 times a day and our new Sprinklr Happier Certification program are helping employees easily focus on their wellness on a daily basis. We have also made the headspace app available to employees globally.
• Environmental ritual: Your physical environment can directly affect your emotional atmosphere so having clean, inspiring surroundings can make a huge impact. Try to create a space that will be comfortable, ergonomic, and distraction free.

3. Set healthy expectations

Hiccups and disruptions while trying to get work tasks done from home are completely normal. There will inevitably be emotional highs and lows, and it’s possible that extra effort will be required to produce the same work. For employers, it may take more work to enable the same level of engagement. But that’s ok! It’s just part of the package. Adapting work expectations and keeping goals manageable will prevent frustration, and empower your employees and colleagues to handle hardships readily. Some tips for setting healthy expectations:

• Communicate clearly and frequently. Transparency is key to keeping everyone in the loop.
• Allow for flexibility in your schedule, and offer flexibility to others.
• Give yourself breaks. Allow yourself to step away from work. Eat meals away from your laptop and remember to get some fresh air.
• When you’re done with work, do something else. Use e-learning as a tool to learn something new and give your mind a break from work.

Above all, during these trying times, give yourself grace. Allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from them. Whether you’re making decisions for your whole organization, or for your personal day to day work life, we’re all in this together. Trying to reconcile ourselves to a new lifestyle is tough and will take time. I hope that implementing some of these suggestions will help you stay healthy and happy as we all move forward together.