Happy Hour is 9 to 5 (14 page)

If you can reduce your personal spending to a level where you can quickly decide to not work for a while or to work for less money, you’re much more free and will have a much easier time becoming happy at work. This may of course mean living in a smaller house or apartment than you would prefer, no 40-inch flatscreen TV, and no second car, but you need to ask yourself whether owning all these things is worth it. If your work makes you unhappy you’re not really enjoying all the things your salary buys anyway. It makes more sense to reduce your expenses to a level that affords you more freedom at work.

Trouble explaining being fired to your next employer

If you believe that being fired is embarrassing and that it reflects badly on you, then this will come out in your CV and in your job interviews. However, if you hold your head up high and explain exactly what happened and why you’re not ashamed, then this will help convey the impression that, “Yeah, I was fired, but so what?”

Some employers will understand — provided you explain it right.
Shame

Many people feel deep shame about being fired and being unemployed. Being fired from your last job is not typical polite dinner conversation with strangers. Why is being fired or unemployed so embarrassing for us? It simply doesn’t need to be. Don’t let others force shame upon you if you feel you have nothing to be ashamed of.
Loss of relationships

For many people, their closest relationships are with people at work — losing them can be painful. The best way to mitigate this is to make sure you have many positive relationships outside of work too. And increasing your employability helps you to quickly find a new job and establish new relationships at work.

If you reduce your fear of being fired you increase your freedom and happiness at work. At the very least you can stop feeling ashamed about something that happens to hundreds of thousands of people every year, is a perfectly natural part of working life, and which may not be your fault at all.

5. the body at work

Physician Claus Hyldahl, an expert in work-related stress and diseases, rarely pulls any punches. In fact his style involves provoking working professionals to direct their attention to the fact that their lifestyle is bad for them. Hyldahl says: “Many of the people who think that they’re suffering from workplace stress are just out of shape. That’s why they’re sweating, breathing heavily, their heart is pounding and they’re feeling weak. Not stress, simply bad physical shape. They don’t need to reduce their workload, they need to increase their physical load.”

He goes on to talk about the fact that the human body is designed to be used. “Human beings evolved from nomads and consequently evolution has optimised our bodies to a nomadic lifestyle, i.e., one that involves a lot of walking. Walking 6 miles a day is what we’re built for and sitting still is bad for us. In fact, the typical, modern, sedentary way of life is as bad for your health as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.”

In many workplaces the body has been reduced to “that thing that carries the head from one meeting to the next.” That’s not good. Even though more and more work today is knowledge-based and goes on mainly inside people’s heads, your body still matters because the body’s state directly influences your mental state. If your body is tired and has no energy, you will find it very difficult to be motivated, creative and productive.

The problem is that many of the habits of the modern workplace are unhealthy. We sit still all day, eat too much, drink too much coffee, experience emotional stress and adopt unhealthy postures. The result: back problems, heart problems, weakened immune defences, diabetes, low energy, migraines, shoulder and neck pain, and much more.

It’s high time that we start treating our bodies right at work.

Eat right

In a Danish study from 2005, two groups of truck drivers were given a controlled diet for two days. One group had healthy food, designed to stabilise their blood sugar levels. The other group ate junk food. Yes, the sacrifices some people make in the name of science.

The drivers were then placed in a truck simulator that tested their driving. The study found that the drivers who lived on junk food had slower reactions. When going 45 mph. on a highway, they needed 100 feet more to notice a traffic jam ahead and stop the truck than the drivers eating healthy food. Who knew that burgers could be a traffic hazard...
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What you eat matters a great deal for your energy, productivity and happiness at work. Controversially, the most important tip is to eat between meals. We’ve been told since we were children not to do it, but it’s a well-known fact that when people’s blood sugar drops below a certain level they get tired and grumpy. I often notice this in myself — I start getting cranky, even the smallest things annoy me, and I snap at people. An apple later, I’m fine.

Rather than eating a huge lunch meant to last you all the way until dinner, eat a smaller lunch and an afternoon snack or two. Make sure to snack on foods that take the body a long time to digest. A chocolate bar hits your body with a brief sugary energy rush and then leaves you with a lower blood sugar level, feeling more tired than before. Apples, nuts, granola bars or carrots give your body an energy boost that lasts much longer. Eat healthily and often.

Chart your energy

Here’s a fun little exercise. For a week, notice how energetic you feel throughout the day and write it down hourly. You can set your watch, your phone or your calendar program to alert you once an hour.

Every hour you write down how much energy you have at that particular moment on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 = near-coma and 5 = totally energetic.

After a week, make a graph of your numbers and see if any trends emerge. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Are there some recurring peaks or slumps?
  
• Does your energy slump after meals? Try eating less.
  
• Does your energy slump between meals? A snack around that time could help.
  
• How does your workload and energy levels match up? Are you awake when you need to be?
  
• Is your energy generally low? Some exercise might be the answer.
  
• Is there a better way to schedule your work, depending on your energy levels?
  
• Are you always tired in the morning? Maybe you can start your day later. Or maybe a different breakfast is the key.
  

There’s a ‘Chart Your Energy” spreadsheet you can use for this exercise at
www.pinetribe.com/alexander/exercises

Move

Your chair is your enemy! That’s how the New York Times summarised the results of a study on physical activity in the workplace. It went on to say this:

“It doesn’t matter if you go running every morning, or you’re a regular at the gym. If you spend most of the rest of the day sitting  — in your car, your office chair, on your sofa at home — you are putting yourself at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death. In other words, irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you.”
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So sitting still is bad and moving around is good. As Claus Hyldahl points out, our bodies are not designed for inaction. Fortunately, there are many simple ways to add some movement to a workday:

• Stand-up meetings — Meetings also take less time that way.
  
• Stand up and work — Provided your desk raises to that level.
  
• Use a ball instead of a chair — Those big exercise balls make excellent office chairs.
  
• Go for a walk — Stretch your legs and get some fresh air at the same time.
  
• Play a game — A quick game of tag or catch is always fun.
  

There is also plenty of advice about the correct posture for desk-bound workers: sit up, back straight, neck straight, correct lumbar support… the list goes on. In fact, it matters less how you sit and more that you’re constantly changing position. It’s not that the tips are wrong, but even if your posture is picture-perfect, holding one position all day is bad for you. Change your position at the desk constantly. Put your feet up. Stand. Sit. Reverse your chair and straddle the back. Turn your chair sideways. Lie on the floor. Lean against a wall. Just move!

Sleep right

As life gets busier, both at work and outside of it, many people have cut down on their sleep time. This is not a good idea. According to the National Sleep Foundation (no I didn’t know there was such a thing either), most adults need 7–9 hours of sleep a night, yet the overwhelming majority of people report that they do not get enough. When sleep deprived, people think and move more slowly, make more mistakes, and have difficulty remembering things
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That 7 a.m. meeting may sound like a good way to get more out of the day, but if everyone turns up tired, cranky and uncreative from lack of sleep, it may be nothing but a huge waste of time.

You can even sleep on the job. Some people find that a 15-minute powernap some time after lunch is just the ticket to staying fresh and energetic throughout the afternoon. According to the American National Institute of Mental Health, a nap enhances information processing and learning. Also, new experiments at Harvard University show that a midday snooze reverses information overload and that a 20 per cent overnight improvement in learning a motor skill is largely traceable to a late stage of sleep that some early risers might be missing
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Make sure that you get the right amount of sleep, and the time you spend at work will be much more productive.

All the usual stuff

Yes, if you’re overweight you should lose some of it. If you smoke, you should quit. If you drink too much, try moderation. If you’re a coffee-holic, cut down a little. If you don’t exercise, start now.

Aside from the negative health effects, each of these vices decreases your physical energy. Less energy means less motivation, drive, productivity and happiness at work. When your body is tired, your mind won’t be running at full capacity either.

Me time

It’s important to simply notice what’s happening in your body. Take a little time out every day to reduce stress and clear your mind. Here’s an exercise to help you do it.