If you work remotely or have a work-from-home job you likely know firsthand how important it is to take care of your mental health. We should all take care of our mental health always – however, with work from home, it can be more commonly neglected as some elements of work life are not there for built-in mental health care. I’m going on 2.5 years working from home and have had a time where I’ve been a rockstar taking care of my mental health. Other times it’s been neglected and getting back into routines has been hard. I’ve learned that forming habits and holding yourself to them can be powerful. Here are 11 mental health tips for working from home to help you with remote work and your mental health.
Get outside!
This might seem super simple and well-known but can often be neglected. It can be easy to start working and lose track of time. Before you know it the end of the day happens, and you haven’t moved your body. I always told myself I was going to go for a walk “tomorrow”. This ended up being something I told myself for over a year.
What changed one day was I finally put in my work calendar and told myself no excuses. My reminder went off and I went on a walk – with a podcast in my wireless earbuds. None the less I went for a walk and got my body moving. I thought leaving my workstation would make me less productive but it actually gave me more energy and helped me feel like I was taking care of myself. Plus, I actually absorbed more from my podcasts as I was listening instead of multitasking. Being outside and getting Vitamin D from the sunshine can do wonders for your mental health by boosting your mood, helping you feel alert, and overall increasing your feelings of happiness.
Take a break
When I was working in an office I found breaks very natural and easy as other colleagues would interact with me, we’d plan walks together or plan time to chat and hang out on our breaks. When I moved to working from home and building my own business I struggled with building in breaks. One of the best tips for working from home is setting an alarm or appt in your calendar to remind you to take breaks. Here are 4 other things I learned about productivity and working from home!
For myself, I set time in the morning and afternoon and make a point to get up and leave my office. Not only is this good for your overall health, but it also helps mentally you get a break and fulfill your body’s (and mind’s needs). What do I mean by that? When I stop working, I often think to myself, I’m thirsty or I need to get some fresh air, things you don’t often think about when working.
So, no matter what your job is, set aside some time when you leave your work tasks. It can be for whatever amount of time but ensure you’re giving yourself at least 10 minutes when you can.
A tidy home office
Did you know the space you work in has an impact on your mental health? It does! Having a cluttered and messy space is not helping your mental health at all. One of the best methods I’ve found for myself is setting aside time each week to clean and declutter my office space. Since implementing this schedule, I no longer feel stressed being in a cluttered office or feeling overwhelmed at needing to clean it but always saying it will happen another day. When it comes to mental health tips for working from home don’t skip over cleaning your space!
Setting up healthy morning routines
When working from home it can be easy to just get to work. You don’t have your morning commute, don’t need to pack a lunch, and don’t really need to get all ready and dressed for the day (although I recommend it!). Stopping and creating healthy morning routines are imperative for taking care of your mental health. Although this sounds like one of those commonly heard health tips working from home, it’s not nearly as implemented by folks as it should be. I’ve begun personally to implement these 7 ways to help me raise my energy in the morning!
Setting up a morning healthy routine can help you start your day off with more energy, increase mood and overall provide space for work time and taking care of yourself. Here are a couple of tips I recommend when thinking about supporting your mental health while working from home. Set up healthy habits for your morning which can include:
- Working out/ moving your body
- Morning coffee/ breakfast
- Listening to music
- Journaling
- Mediation
- Spending time with a loved one
- Showering
Get ready for the day
As I mentioned above, it can easy to fall into patterns of just working away in your PJs or comfy clothes (guilty of this myself). However when it comes to positive mental health getting dressed actually has an impact. When you get dressed and ready in the morning it helps you mentally get into a more positive state of mind for the day ahead. It helps you increase your confidence and overall help with increasing positive emotions. This is key for those who are navigating working from home depression or working from home anxiety.
Take the time to get yourself ready. This could be having a shower, brushing your teeth, doing a morning face wash and face care routine, and getting clean clothes on. Just like when working in an office be sure to give yourself time in the morning to do a routine and get ready for your day before your work hours.
Leave your bed
This is one of my biggest mental health tips for working from home, if I could shout it from the rooftops I would. Not only is working from your bed going to lead to less productivity, and bad for your physical health (ergonomically not good!) it can be harmful to your mental health. How so? Well, it overall doesn’t help your energy levels and can make you feel sleepy, tired, or lethargic. As well it can increase stress and lead to a lower mood. It’s likely to disrupt your sleep cycles as working from your bed confused your body on sleeping and workspaces.
So be sure to get out of bed to work. You don’t need to have an office space per se (although I recommend if you can) but have a separate space then where you sleep when possible. New to working from home here are 5 work from home essentials I recommend for any space.
Music / Podcasts
Do you know about the benefits of music and your mental health? Music can have many benefits for your mental wellbeing such as increasing happy feelings, lowering stress, reducing anxiety, lower blood pressure, and increasing alertness. When working remotely or working from home be sure to throw on some tunes. It can be a random playlist, or one you’re carefully curated. Either way, it can help you with increasing your mood as you work and overall improve your home life as you work.
For myself, I love podcasts. It helps me with listening to people have a conversation which increases my mood and overall attention. Whatever works best for your mental health whether it’s music or podcasts, or both – do it! It’s a simple and easy working from home well being tips that take less than a minute to get going during your work day.
Aromatherapy
Want to know one of my all-time favourite mental health tips for working from home? It’s using essential oils in my workspace! I find they not only help with boosting my productivity but they help improve my mental health. Essential oils and mental health? Yes, they can help with reducing anxious feelings, increasing happiness, and overall increase feelings of calmness, focus, and peace.
You can easily set up an essential oils diffuser in your space and then diffuse essential oils throughout the day. Depending on what you need there are a plethora of oils that can help. For example, there are oils to help with reducing anxious feelings and promoting calm and there are oils I use to help increase my focus, motivation, and overall productivity. This is one of my favourite tips for working at home for my home office space.
Journalling
Working from home can be isolating and can lack the social interactions that come with a typical work place. Journalling is a great way to help your mental health when working from home and is a good way to express your emotions. When working from home wellbeing can be neglected easily. Setting up a time to journal and think about your feeling and emotions can help with understanding where your mental health is at. Think of it as a temperature read on how your mental health is doing. You can use journal prompts, or you can just journal your feelings.
Setting up time each day to journal, or each week can be helpful with doing those personal check-ins. If you’re an entrepreneur who works mainly independently this can be a great way to help you learn how to stay positive while working from home with journaling about gratitude.
Working out/ Move your body
Do you know the importance of working from home and physical health impacts? It’s important for your mental and physical health to learn more about keeping active while working from home. This can be as simple as mentioned above going for a walk. It could be setting up a small workout zone in your space with hand weights. It could be engaging in an online fitness class or program or it could be as simple as doing some stretches to break up your day.
Typically, when working from home it leads to a more sedentary lifestyle and so it’s important to keep moving your body. Research has shown that working out and moving your body can be helpful in increasing your mental health. It helps with improving your sleep, reducing depression/anxiety, increasing mood, and helps with improving self-esteem and confidence! Check out these simple joint pain reducing at home stretches.
Fueling your body!
Did you know what you put in your body not only is connected to your physical health but also your mental health? I find this is one of the lesser-known mental health tips for working from home. When you’re putting fast food, high sodium food, junk food, carb-dense meals, and overall not nutritious meals into your body it can make you feel tired, sluggish, irritable, and overall crummy. This can negatively affect your mood, especially if your body isn’t getting the nutrients it needs. However, when you’re putting high-quality foods in your body you’re giving it the minerals, vitamins, and supplements it needs to help with reducing stress, improving focus, improving sleep, and improving mood. So take the time to reach for some healthy food options when working from home. Or meal prep ahead with some healthy snacks and lunches if you’ve got a busy week!