• Poor Blood Circulation: Individuals who sit for long periods of time at work experience poor blood circulation. The problems of a poor blood circulation are that less blood reaches the muscles, depriving them of oxygen and other necessary nutrients, leading to fatigue.

• Weak Muscles: With prolonged sitting at work promoting limited movement of muscles, most big muscle groups go through long phases of immobility. Lack of exercise is the primary reason why most muscles become weak plus with poor blood circulation, muscles tend to cramp, get strained or pulled after prolonged sitting.

To know more see Effects of prolonged sitting at work!

Some tips to deal with shift:

• Try to maintain some routine, that is sleep at a particular hour and wake up at a specific time. This will help your body adjust.
• Eat smart: when you leave for work, make sure you have something to eat like breakfast that is filling and nutritious, while at work- much on dry fruits and healthy snacks and avoid too many cups of coffee and tea and snacking on junk food.

To know more see Fatigue at Work

• The Inspiring type

He is the one sending you encouraging emails each time you contribute to work in a positive way, each time you come up with lateral ideas, and each time you strike a new deal. He is fun to be with, is supportive of your ideas and abilities, he is intelligent and able and inspires you to unleash your potential.

You can: Firstly, you love to be working with him, his opinions and feedback matter a lot and actually help you in improving yourself and enriching your potential. You are lucky, and now you can use this great opportunity to really see how far you can go, and if at the end of your tenure, you can earn a letter of reference!

• The Fake Type

If you are under this type of Boss, you exactly know what we mean. He is a fake in that he is trying to hide his inadequacies behind big talk and other diversions. He is neither updated nor informed, but just because he has reached a higher position above you, he has this sense of false prestige. He is neither a good leader nor an inspiring one.

You can: Occasionally show him his mistakes in disguise of guarding him and guiding him, until you get your next promotion or he quits.

To know more see Are you sick of your Boss?

• Communicate: Communication enriches understanding. Keeping to oneself doesn’t always prove to be healthy in the long term, as many issues remain unresolved thereby leading to problems and misunderstandings and loss of interest. Talk to your supervisor or mentor as they could help you.
• Not get bullied: If you are being undermined by your colleagues or have trouble with a boss who is “over- micromanaging” your work, it is time to put your foot down and claim your space.
• Align your values: If your values are different from the manner in which your company does business or handles employee grievances, it will wear on you.
• Look for avenues to unwind: If and when your job gets monotonous or chaotic, the best thing is to involve yourself into something that is different from what you are doing at the moment.

To know more ways to deal with it see Victim of Job Burnout

• Learn when to say no and when to say yes: When at job, more than being a people pleaser, remember you have a responsibility given to you and you need to deliver that with utmost conviction and honesty. Learn to say no, when you want to say no. This would keep you in control of yourself. You must have a say in the type of assignments you will do and the number of hours you will work, else there will be neither productivity nor performance if it is against your wish.
• Do Work that suits you: If you are caught up in a wrong job, which the best thing is to quit and find one which suits your skills and personality. Because working in a job that doesn’t fit your interests, although you are working diligently, is sure to bounce back later.
• Be clear with your goals: It is important to discuss and talk it out with your supervisors about the limits and the extent of your duties in the firm. When you are not clear with your exact goals, there are good chances for conflicts to take place.

To know more ways to deal with it see Victim of Job Burnout

• You do not have the same enthusiasm and zeal with which you used to work before. The energy is on a downfall and this can be seen in your performance levels
• You tend to take yourself too seriously in the office cafeteria jokes
• Your job no longer gives you fulfillment and you are disappointed
• You are having a hard time getting sound sleep or have loss of appetite and if your medical practitioner attributes it to work pressures.

To know ways to deal with it see Victim of Job Burnout

Allergies, Flu: Air conditioners prevent many asthma and allergic reactions as the filters keep the outside dust, fungi under control with circulating clean air. But if the air filter is not maintained then the fungi, bacteria in the same filter can trigger flu, asthma attack, irritation of the eyes and throat.

The Solution: Clean the filter with soapy water and let it dry before reinstalling. Make sure, you have an Annual Management Contract and cleaning filters forms a part of the contract.

Stale Air: Even if one person suffers from flu in an air conditioned office, it can soon spread to others due to the circulation of the same air. 

The Solution-Opening windows at least half an hour in a day when nobody is the office will help circulate the air. This way the infectious air won’t circulate.

- Using Ozonizers, a type of air purifier for 20 minutes can kill bacteria and filter out a wide range of contaminants.

To know more reasons see ACs can make you sick!

• Pulls up Humidity: Air conditioners soak up humidity. They aren’t selective about from where humidity comes. So, the moisture in the skin is also absorbed and the skin is left dry. When a person immediately goes in the sun afterwards, the UV rays directly affect the skin leaving it under attack.

The Solution: Keep a bowl of water where the room so it pulls the moisture from the water not the skin thus the drying effect is reduced. Also, apply moisturizer on the skin.

• Dry Air: Air conditioned air is very dry and the delicate linings of our nose and mouth could become cracked and dry. To prevent this, our body floods those delicate areas with mucus so as to prevent the tissue from drying out. So, people get runny noses, watery eyes while some get nosebleeds.

The Solution: Humidity lower than 50% causes discomfort by drying out the mucus membranes, contributing to skin rashes.

-When relative humidity is kept at about 50%, office workers have fewer respiratory problems specifically in the winter and generally feel better.

To know more reasons see ACs can make you sick!

So, air conditioners are keeping you in the office more, and are making your boss smile. But did you know that ACs might be making you sick? Here is how:

• Unnatural Cooling: Headaches result in an air-conditioned room because warm blood under the scalp comes into contact with extremely cold air. If this happens too suddenly, the temperature of the blood decreases depriving the brain of heat, thereby causing headaches.

The Solution: A general recommendation is that the temperature be held constant in the range of 21-23°C. In summertime when outdoor temperatures are higher it is advisable to keep air-conditioned offices slightly warmer to minimize the temperature differences between indoors and outdoors.

• Unclean Air conditioning Duct: Studies have shown that air-conditioning ducts, mostly used in most new age buildings are conducive to the growth of fungi and algae over a period of time which in turn lead to various bacterial infections among employees who breathe this air. There are even dead rats, metals, dust and debris found in the air ducts.

The Solution: To make sure that the air ducts are thoroughly cleaned at least every 6 months.

To know more reasons see ACs can make you sick!

Stop!! Managers, Businessmen and leaders of companies….! Are you witnessing more emotional health issues with your employees which results in lower productivity. Do you know that roots of even chronic illnesses occurred to many employees, have been connected to Health of the Mind. 

Yoga is unarguably the best ways to improve emotional health of any being  

Science Daily yesterday reported that Twenty minutes per day of guided workplace meditation and yoga combined with six weekly group sessions can lower feelings of stress by more than 10 percent and improve sleep quality in sedentary office employees, a pilot study suggests.

 In this context, mindfulness refers in part to one’s heightened awareness of an external stressor as the first step toward relaxing in a way that can minimize the effects of that stress on the body.

  “It doesn’t matter what the stress is, but how you change the way you perceive the stress,” Klatt noted. “I like to describe mindfulness as changing the way you see what’s already there. It’s a tool that teaches people to become aware of their options. If they can’t change the external events in their life, they can instead change the way they view the stress, which can make a difference in how they experience their day-to-day life.”

 Mindful attention awareness increased significantly and perceived stress decreased significantly among the intervention group when compared to the control group’s responses. Overall sleep quality increased in both groups, but three of seven components of sleep were more affected in the intervention group.

 On average, mindfulness increased by about 9.7 percent and perceived stress decreased by about 11 percent among the group that experienced the intervention. These participants also reported that it took them less time to fall asleep, they had fewer sleep disturbances and they experienced less daytime dysfunction than did members of the non-intervention group.

 The researchers took saliva samples to test for the presence of cortisol, a stress hormone, but found no significant changes in average daily levels of the hormone over time for participants in both groups. Klatt said the design of this part of the pilot study could have affected the result, and the sample collection technique will be changed in subsequent studies.

 Klatt said mindfulness-based stress reduction, developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, has been studied widely and determined to be useful in lowering symptoms ranging from depression and anxiety to chronic pain. But the time commitment required in the program makes it impractical for busy working professionals, and adding a stress-reduction class outside of work could add stress to these people, she said.

Medimanage’s People Wellness Solution creates Health Calendars for businesses and organizations, which include programs like Meditation, Mindfullness, Awareness Camps et al.

It is proven that investing on health of employees costs lower to provide than to avoid!!!