As an office yoga teacher, every day I work with people who have found yoga as their way to energize during the work day. While it\’s becoming ever more popular due to some powerful people encouraging it, I wonder about those without the luxury of a stretch break in the afternoon. Staying energized contributes to success, and I\’ve asked around and found some creative ways successful people do it. So, how do successful people stay energized?
I\’ve interviewed a dynamic group of people in diverse careers with one thing in common: They\’ve found healthy ways to stay energized for the work day. Read these helpful tips below, and find at least one easy way to energize for your work day!
Take a long walk: Hourly Nerd co-founder Patrick Petitti stays energized by taking a long walk. \”At lunch, I intentionally go to a really far restaurant because I want to get some exercise and free my mind.\” Simple and easy, sometimes taking a walk can be the best thing to energize your day.
Energize with sleep: Getting enough sleep may be an obvious way to energize before work, but it\’s scientifically proven. David Russel, the Senior Evaluation Scientist at the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, sites this study that recommends a good nights sleep to stay energized for the next day. Try it.
Work out with clients: Try and squeeze a workout in — with clients. Alison Ferreira, a busy mom who works for Equities Sales on Wall Street for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has done 6am early morning bootcamps with clients as a way to squeeze a workout into the day. \”Clients increasingly prefer a workout to meals or drinks as everyone has become more health conscience.\” Who knew! Everyone benefits from the energy of a fun workout.
Listen to music: Christina Mercando is the CEO and inventor of Ringly, a ring that bluetooth connects to your phone to give notifications. She\’s frequently traveling, and manages a company that requires a creative edge in both jewelry and technology. She has a simple way to stay energized: Music! \”When I need to get in the creative zone, I put on my headphones and shut out what\’s around me to stay focused.\” With services out there like Spotify or Pandora, you have free and easy access to a library of music.
Bring Lunch from Home: Merrie Balka is the Director of Rehabilitation Services for Youth at Lighthouse Guild for the Blind. When she\’s not managing the non-profit\’s youth programs, she\’s out and about teaching daily living skills to adults who are visually impaired. She stays energized by eating a home cooked lunch. \”It alleviates the stress of deciding what to buy, taking time to go outside, and potentially making unhealthy choices. Whatever I make is more nutritious than what I can buy at a store.\” Even if you don\’t have the best cooking skills, services like Blue Apron can plan meals for you and take the pressure off preparing something healthy and fresh.
Video games: Believe it or not, video games can be energizing, especially when they encourage exercise. When OKCupid was a scrappy startup, co-founder Chris Coyne remembers a fun way his team stayed energized at the office. \”We used to play MarioKart at lunch. Various events inside the game led to push-ups. If you fired a blue shell: push-ups. If you used a star: push-ups. And then at the end of the race, everyone did push-ups based on their rank. Many of us got good at push-ups.\” Adding physical activity into gaming is definitely fun and energizing.
Use Health Monitoring Technology:
Coyne also noted how the quantified self movement is encouraging engineers to become more physically aware. \”We engineering types often live in our own heads. We disregard our bodies. This leads to physical stress, then mental stress.\” New and appealing health monitoring tools are giving engineers a chance to self monitor their daily activities. \”They make sure to walk a certain number of steps a day, they track their weight in the cloud, they check their heart rate.\” It\’s so easy to track your health these days with the ubiquity and variety of health monitoring technology out there.
How will you stay energized today? Try one of these creative ways and energize right now.
Written by Lauren Coles
