Many reports have shown that when employees follow a healthier diet, they are prone to have less stress and become much more effective at work.
What comes to your mind when you think about the aspects that contribute to your performance at work? Is it the weather or fewer hours of sleep affecting the way you work? Usually, we rarely give much importance or consideration to food we consume. In fact, some people end up completely neglecting it due to their busy schedules.
Carrying extra kilograms is tiring both mentally and physically, and it has direct and indirect influences on your work. When carrying a poor diet, your self-confidence will likely be at a lower level, impacting your ability to work productively and to improve skills. Also, unhealthy eating can cause depression, deregulation of emotion and tiredness, which can lead to having more time off at work for medical reasons. In other words, when employee’s health and nutrition aren’t maximized there are a high number of turnovers, higher costs, and lower productivity.
For these reason, forward-thinking organizations are the leaders in terms of recognizing the role of healthy food on employee’s well-being and effectiveness.
Multiple studies, such as Statistics Canada report, have displayed that stress often triggers a desire to indulge with food. What is more, the food that is likely to be chosen are the ones high in sugar and fat, which isn’t the best option to boost productivity. It is crucial to realise, that the food we consume affects every aspect of our lives, everything we consume is converted into glucose, which provides the energy that is essential for our brain.When people starve consciously or not, the levels of glucose decrease, making the focus and attention low. This is how much food affects our productivity.
There is a key factor in choosing what food to consume, most people are aware of it, but others lack of knowledge that not all food are digested in the same way. Food, such as pasta, cereal and soda release the glucose quickly, boosting energy for a short period of time that is followed by a quick slump. While high-fat meals, such as cheeseburgers or mozzarella sticks, provide a more sustained energy level, it still requires our system to work harder digesting these foods, which causes the oxygen levels to decrease,making you feel weak and tired.
At Opinno, we know that it can be challenging to balance a healthy diet while you are at work. When you are busy with meetings and have a lot on your mind it's easy to forget or plan for your diet. We always want the best for our team, and that means helping them to maintain a balanced diet. We have implemented many elements to follow a healthier diet, one of the most recent ones was the visit of a healthy catering brand. This company has an important mission, they want to inspire healthier communities by connecting people to real food.
Following a healthy diet needs to become everyone's priority, as the benefits of eating better are endless, both personally and professionally. So the next time you are grocery shopping, keep in mind that organization is key, shop for less processed foods and plan your meals for the week to be the best version of yourself.
Photo 1 by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
Photo 2 by Anna Pelzer on Unsplash
