More of us are working from home than at any other period in time, and while there are lots of great things about it, one of the challenges is keeping fit. Walking or cycling to work helps to burn off the shared office donuts, pottering to and from coworkers’ desks, and the coffee machine helps us to meet that moment or two of standing up each hour; there are lots of physical parts to an office job that we forget about. However, that needn’t mean that we all become couch potatoes. Instead, there are some simple steps that you can take to ensure that working from home keeps you fit and well, both physically and mentally. Here’s our guide to how.

Choose the Right Foods

Everybody knows the saying, you are what you eat, but so few of us are any good at acting on the advice. Food can have a profound impact not just on how our bodies look on the outside but on how they perform and feel on the inside too. Although this guide to foods that help you to concentrate is designed for poker players, there’s a lot of information that those working from home can learn from it. Professional poker players will spend many hours at their desks, just like stay-at-home workers. Not only that but they’re expected to be able to think logically under pressure, perform for up to eight hours a day, and aren’t necessarily health nuts. All of this applies to most stay-at-home workers, too, so tips that are suitable for the poker pros are good ones to focus on.

Make Time for Movement

Along with getting the right kind of nutrition, making sure that you’re moving around a little is essential. Not everybody has the time, or frankly, the inclination to get up and spend an hour in the gym every single morning, and for most people, it isn’t strictly necessary. One thing is for sure, though, most of us could benefit from a little less time spent sitting and a little more time spent moving. A standing desk, or even a treadmill desk, is a great invention, but it can be expensive if you aren’t sure how long your home office will be necessary for. Something as simple as an hourly timer set to go off and remind you to stand up for a couple of minutes can make a big difference to your health. So too, could making five minutes at lunchtime to do some stretches or a short yoga practice to alleviate any tension from long periods of sitting down.

Get Good Quality Sleep

Eating and exercising are only two-thirds of the puzzle, the final piece that is absolutely essential for your health is getting good quality sleep. Almost all of us have smartphones, and many of us spend time watching television or playing on a computer in the evenings. Whilst this is fine, it’s super important to turn off anything with a screen a minimum of an hour before bed. The blue light that screens emit plays havoc with our circadian rhythms, making it very difficult for our brains to shut off and sleep when we need to. Making sure that you switch screens to night mode, or ideally turn them off will help your brain get ready to drift off. Reading a book or writing a diary can be a helpful alternative. Diary writing has the additional benefit of allowing you to make a note of any of the worries or tasks that you’re thinking about before bed. Writing these things down will help to take them off your mind and enable you to sleep more soundly.

Designate a Work Space

Finally, whilst it can be very tempting to type away on your laptop in front of the television, you’ll be far more productive if you don’t do that. Staying focused and on task is a whole lot easier if you’re working away from distractions, so if there’s space, designate yourself a work area. You only need a desk and a chair in order to get your work done, which can usually fit into even the smallest apartments.