Speaker #0Hi, welcome to The Pulse, the podcast where we explore the heartbeat of life and work. I'm Julie, your host, and I'm thrilled to have you join me on this journey. Every two weeks, I will bring you a regular dose of inspiration, practical tips, and regular stories about personal development, wellness, and career growth. Whether you're looking for motivation, fresh perspective or just a reminder that you're not alone, you are in the right place. So welcome and let's dive in. Hi, welcome to The Pulse. I hope you're doing well. Today we will be discussing health and fitness. I wanted to do a bit of a short and fun episode to talk about you As a busy professional, what you can do in order to ensure that you keep your health and fitness and that you're able to manage everything. And in a way, I'm perfect. I definitely am not in my best shape all the time. But I wanted to have this conversation of what are the tips that we can all put in place and try to improve on and help each other in order to feel at our healthiest and our... strongest, when it comes to being for our day-to-day life, basically, in our very busy life. So when we think health and fitness, we can definitely consider many different topics, right? So here in this episode, I will mainly talk about sports, about nutrition, about mental health, about sleep, just to give you a bit of an overall, some tips and some helps. into finding some elements to make you feel more comfortable, more confident and to ensure that you keep the energy going in a very busy and very what can be very stressful of yeah life overall. Tip number one having a sports schedule is key. It's quite important for you to have sports into your schedule and it's Sometimes you have a busy life that doesn't allow you to do full hours or an hour and a half like some other people can. But already putting 10-15 minutes in your schedule can help your health and your body to stay healthy. So I know we talk a lot about those expectations. You have to not sit more than X hours per day. You have to do 10,000 steps, whatever it is. And while this is very good to know, but... the end of the day what that says is that you have to be on a regularly basis have your body moving and one thing that you can do to help your body in term of um it's not only having your body moving but also having your heart rate a bit higher and for this there is automatically multiple exercises you can do you can do some smoother more um Um... more gentle training, such as yoga, you can do some more endurance or some more high intensity training, like HIIT, like running, and you have a lot of in-between, right? So it's important that you don't also push your training only on the weekend. I talked with my cardiologist a couple of years ago, and I was not seeing any improvement when it comes to my heart rate, even though I was training a lot, I felt my heart rate. was always high. And he said to me, well, it's because you train basically Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And then between Sunday and the following Friday, your heart is not trained and is not challenged. And therefore, it doesn't learn and doesn't improve from this situation. So have this also in mind. I think it's good to have it that even during those weekdays, Monday through Friday, where you may be very busy, having you at least 10-15 minutes of some workout can help you ensure that you stay consistent and that you also ensure that your heart is a bit not I don't like to say challenged but a bit like pumping a bit differently than the norm on a regular basis and therefore it's helping you with your overall overall health. Tip number two don't forget to go outside during the day. I would encourage also in regards to wellness. is to have a time during the day where you go walking if you can even do walking meetings sometime this can be quite helpful why is that because first of all if you stay all day within an office within a building and not get any fresh air then you're going to feel at some point that this create a lack of i mean there is oxygen but a lack of refreshness in in some sense i've had myself sometimes the case where I end up Spending the whole day having lunch at my desk and no time to get outside and take in the sun, the fresh air and have a bit of time too. Yeah, reset. And I do feel this is something that is important in order to ensure that you are the most productive in your life. And this is also valid in the other way around, right? If you are at home all day, taking the time to go during lunchtime outside or to go for a little walk around in the evening or in the morning, but within the day even itself, Having those moments will help you feel more at ease and will be able to help you refresh your mind. So something also to consider as tip number two. Tip number three, sleep is critical and keeping a sleeping schedule is very important. Whenever you are in an environment where you are very busy and you have a very active day-to-day work, family, any extra curricular that may come or that you have in your, you're detuned to handle appointments, whatever, it can get very difficult to create a certain routine. So whenever you are not able to create that routine, what's the most important for you to keep is to keep the same schedule of sleep. And I had, I can't remember if it was a podcast or a book where I read, I think it was a podcast where we're told with the expert in sleep. Yes, sorry. Yeah, so I listened to a podcast from an expert in sleeps and he was mentioning how important it is also to keep the same sleeping schedule on the weekend. So let's say you tend to sleep during the week, you go to bed at 10 and you wake up at 6. It's if you decide on the weekend to go to bed at 1 a.m. and to wake up at 10. This is too much of a gap and it's going to make very difficult for you to and for your body to get used to a certain sleeping schedule and therefore to have the most restorative sleep. So I would really advise here to try to keep a bit of a more similar and this person also was explaining how it's important to keep a bit of a similar sleeping schedule. Of course, you don't have to go to bed at 10 also on the weekend. You may want to do 11-ish. But... try to also in the morning then potentially still wake up maybe not at six or seven maybe wake up at eight but having a bit of more that balance environment so keeping a similar schedule on weeks and weekend help you have a better recovery overall and it's important to to have that in mind also because if on weekends you want to kind of recuperate from your week yes on one it's a good idea But maybe not just to extend or switch so much your sleeping schedule. Having a more routine week and weekends together might help you in that direction. Tip number four, your meals are going to help you have more energy. So be critical about what you eat and when you eat. It's important, first of all, that you analyze a little bit how you are when it comes to nutrition when it comes to what is available to you at work as well in order to be able to prepare for it so for example I know that some people like to have tupperwares or bring and bring something in some people have a great canteen and if you have a great canteen that's amazing and use it potentially but you have to understand does the food that is provided to me or that I can buy next to my place of work how healthy and how good it is for me and it can be healthy but is it bringing you the right amount of carbs or protein or veggies etc that you need throughout the day it's important to have that perspective and not to just consider okay the meals are good yeah but is it what I need to eat in order to be at my healthiest and so I would really Based on that, decide for yourself. If you're able to get the nutrition that you need to get over lunch, then great. If you're not able to get it, then maybe you should bring it and have, as I said, Tupperware, or have a box or something with you where you can bring your food. And that means, of course, preparation ahead of time. But by having this in mind, that can help you increase the amount of... healthy, nutritious food that you bring to your body during the day in your busy life. Also, potentially, if you know that you have no time over lunch, bringing your lunch in a box can help you avoid... Either not to eat or to eat a sandwich in five minutes. Having something more nutritious can help. Just to give you an example, for myself, I very often tend to, I like to have breakfast late. And if I take breakfast at my work, well, there are some good options for other people. For me, it's not the type of breakfast I like to eat in the morning. And therefore, I tend to end up having a croissant. Which ones in a while? It's nice. I won't say I do I still have some once in a while but I kind of started to reduce and bring a little box with some food for myself like a healthier breakfast because I don't want I don't have time in the morning to do it at home I don't want to wake up earlier to have it and I'm not hungry as soon as I wake up so I bring this little box with me and then I have breakfast at my desk in the morning and it's a healthier option than what I would have taken. on the go in the office. Tip number five, don't forget the importance of snacks. I'm the first one to say that it's definitely not easy. There is usually in the office a lot of snacks. I always have, I would say we always have candy, cookies, cakes around the office, at least in all the offices I've worked in, there was very often something around. And there is For sure, this feeling of sometimes people wanted to have a pick-me-up, having a bit of sugar, even more in the afternoon. And while it is always nice to have this around, sometimes it can be quite difficult. Because this amount of sugar in the middle of the afternoon, 3, 4 p.m., it's not the best time based on, you know, a day of eating and the nutrition it brings at a certain point in time it brings. But overall... I think it's important, therefore, to plan for a snack. It's always important. We have busy days, but if you plan for an apple instead of candy, if you plan for having some nuts or some things on the side that you can bring or already a certain, not cake, but healthier options that you have in mind that you bring to the office for you for your snack time. Then this will help you avoid to then in the moment that you have this craving and you have the need for pick-me-up, that you go straight for the processed food option. And as I said, nowhere am I perfect. I also did organize a workshop not long ago and I had no time to bake or to do anything. So I brought some candy for my team. So it's not easy and I think it's very natural to go to the candy. And I'm not saying that you would not do it every day. But if once in a while you have these other options next to you, it might be easier for you to manage. And the other day I saw one of my colleagues had walnuts, I think, or I don't remember which one. Peanut? No, not peanut. Cashews. Cashews. She had cashews on her desk. And I thought it was a great idea to have this at hand so you get a bit more nutritious snacks. But it's not so... It's not as... It's still a snack, but you get a more nutritious snack. Tip number six. Use today's flexibility of schedule in your advantage to avoid a high mental load. These days, we are having very often, for many of us, not all of us, but for many of us, we have a more flexible environment and a very flexible schedule with also some home office days. So having in mind of how you organize these home office days and how you organize your days in the office may be slightly different. As a professional looking at the balance of your health and fitness, also consider your mental health and the mental load a day in the office and a day at home may have. And it could be that the day at home actually are going to be more difficult. Because you also see that you have to do laundries, maybe the kids come in earlier and therefore you hear them in the other room while you're working or other things that comes to your mind. Or it could be vice versa, that the day when you are in the office are more mental loaded because of the fact that, you know, you have to rush out of work to go pick up the kids. Or you have to plan for further appointment or you were not able to do whatever you need to do. At home, in the environment, or you feel like potentially just losing time on the road might be a heavy load for you. Based on that, I would highly encourage to understand what feels right and what feels wrong for you and where does it feel difficult or not. And on the day where the mental load is higher, try to alleviate them by putting maybe more on the other days. For example, for me, I know that when I actually come back from holiday or from being away, I like to have my first day back from the office at home. First, because then I can follow up on everything that happened during the day, during the time I was off. And I can look at my emails. I can spend time focusing in the morning. I can also have the laundries running while I do that. And therefore, by the end of the day, I have been productive at home and at work where I feel like I got control back. And then the next day, I'm fully embracing to be back in the office. they need kind of a day of... of recontrolling and rebuilding the environment I need to have in order to be ready with everything. So like emptying the suitcases, doing laundries, everything else on the side. And then for work, I'm not bothered by emails. I'm not bothered. I'm not bothered. I'm bothered by email, but I'm not bothered. I don't put too many calls. I usually try to block at least the first morning, if not the whole day, for me to catch up on things even more. The longer I've been absent, the more I block on that first day back. And that's actually a reminder for me that I need to do that for my next holiday, that I block also my schedule. So this would be also a tip that is really from your health, from the business we're having, the busyness. It's important to ensure that you catch up and that you take a bit of a... understanding of how you deal with each topic and how do you manage overall. Tip number seven is hydration. So as we're coming into the summer months, it's very important to even go further with hydration. So technically hydration, whether you can read, is around 1.5 to 2 liters a day that everyone should be drinking. But now that we are going into summer, you may even want to go a bit higher. higher we get dehydrated a lot faster even more if you do sports so don't forget to hydrate and I do see nowadays more people having their own bottles in the office so they bring it into meetings now you can have a bottle of a liter or half a liter but whatever it is don't forget to refill it and if you're struggling to drink during the day now you can also find some flavors or or added, yeah, I said flavors or cubes or whatever to help. Make it more manageable to drink. Of course, don't end up having too much sugary drinks, but sometimes it's important to help you on that. So I know it sounds very simple, but don't forget to drink water during the day and to hydrate. And by the way, tea and coffee do not hydrate at all. So please consider really water as your number one source. of hydration. I think there is a lot more tips that you can give, of course, and I don't want to go into too much detail on some of them, but I'll give some rapid fire things that you should do or think of. Stretch at your desk. If you can put your desk in standing mode, do that on a regular basis. Take the stairs instead of the elevators. Of course, if you have many stairs and you have an important meeting you don't want to be very sweaty by the time you get up But try to take the stairs if you can. I, for example, work on the first floor. So I always try to take the stairs if I can. As long as I'm healthy, it's important to take those stairs. As I said also, maybe sometimes some five minutes meditation. If you're stressed, if you're in a moment that can be stressful, five minutes of time just to kind of pause and take control back. breathing exercises can be very helpful if you are in transit between work and home and you also have this busy environment then or you are in a rush or you are in traffic and this creates stress for you maybe putting some music that makes you feel good so either something very calming or maybe something that you can dance or sing to that can be sometimes also very helpful for you And also, when you get home, try to do a bit of a digital detox. Even more if you are in a job like me, when we are in our computer all day and on our phones all day, then maybe when coming home, it might be good to just put the phone on the side and not touch it for a little bit or have an app that blocks some of the apps. For example, for me, I have a device at home where I can already preset some blocked app. And therefore, I'm not on social media scrolling right after work or I focus on other things. And I'm from one end very productive, but also on the other side, I'm not again in front of a screen, which can be tiring for the eyes, etc. Talking about the eyes, another quick tip is to look at blue light glasses if you work on a computer. This is very important. Now everyone should know. Unfortunately, even for me, I have blue light glasses. I have glasses and I don't wear them enough. And this is a heavy mistake. But everyone should be aware of the impact of working from a screen. And therefore, having blue light glasses would help in order to keep your eyes in good quality and not to have so many issues later. I think that was the quick fire that comes to my mind. But I'm sure there is many more tips and most likely in other episodes, I will give you some of those tips. Last tip of the day, surround yourself with people with the same mindset as you. It's very difficult if you are trying to put in place some of those tips or if you are trying to have a healthier habit. It's harder to do it surrounded by people that do not care about that habit. For example... I like to run, as you know, and sometimes I need to run during lunchtime because I couldn't in the morning or in the evening is going to be difficult. But it's very difficult to do it in an environment where if everyone goes to lunch and it's making you feel like, why are you running and nobody else is? Why are you doing sport or why are you doing things on your side? It might be a bit trickier. I would not say this is how my office thinks. But it could be the case, I've seen it in some other work environment where people are all going to lunch together and having a special meal and the understanding that potentially someone lives or have a different habit is tricky and some people do not understand it. So as I said, surround yourself with community, with people that have maybe also then it ended up having a running group or whatever else, or maybe then everyone brings healthier snacks in the office. Whatever comes out of it, it can be very helpful. And I'm actually grateful that within my team now, a running crew has been organized, actually. So we try to run once every week or so. And it's nice. It doesn't have to be fast-paced, but it's a good time for us to be outside and to get some fresh air and also to have an active time in our very busy schedule. I hope you liked this episode. I hope those tips, maybe you already knew them, but it's sometimes good to be reminded of them. I hope one you may have learned from or maybe the new habits you put in place. As I said, I'm trying to put those in place. I'm struggling with some of them, but it's a good reminder to have. So yeah, I hope you like it and talk to you soon. Bye. And that's a wrap for today's episodes of The Pulse. If something resonated with you, I would love to hear about it. So drop me a message on Instagram, LinkedIn, or leave a review wherever you're listening. Your feedback fuels this community and I much appreciate it. Make sure to follow The Pulse on your favorite podcast platforms and on social media so you never miss an episode. And if you're craving for more, check out the show notes for links, resources, and where to connect. Until next time, keep trusting your journey because growth happens one step at a time. See you soon. Bye.
