The health benefits of remote working

We at Xoxzo work remotely. The employer saves on rent and electricity. What are the gains of the employees from remote working?

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1. Cut the commute, cut the cortisol

When we commute to work, we either cramp ourselves into the train, the bus, or drive. Rushing for the public transport schedule or trying to beat the rush hour traffic all contribute to raised cortisol level, in another word, stress. When we are lucky, we get a seat on public transport and get to take a nap, but this does not happen all the time.

When we work remotely, we remove a source of stress in life, and we save a lot of time and energy from not commuting. All this time and energy are channeled into producing a better quality of work, and most often overflow into other aspects of our personal lives and we reap benefits from each of them.

2. Get loaded on sleep

Sleep deprivation is a commonplace occurrence in modern culture. The commute time that we save every day, which could easily amount to two hours a day for an average city dweller, can straight away be used to pay off our sleep debt.

Even when we dedicate the same number of hours to work, and not do anything else, we are left with two extra hours of sleep each day. Once we are done with work, we can practically switch off the computer and hit the pillow in a minute.

It is also much easier for those of us who have just landed in a new time zone and suffering from jetlag. We can adjust our sleep hours any way we like, without the abrupt switch to a new 9-5 schedule.

3. Eat better

For those who work from home, when we are homebound the whole day and need to recharge, the natural thing to do is to head for the kitchen and fix something to eat, provided we have done the grocery and the fridge is not empty.

Cooking our own food usually gives us better nutrition. And early dinner time is an effortless weight loss solution. When we need a break from work, we could just head to the kitchen and bite on fruits, or make a glass of juice, snacking does not get any healthier than this.

Some of us like to get out of the home to work, so we could choose to travel to our favorite café or restaurant, whichever that has menus that appeal to our taste buds (maybe our subconscious nutritional needs). And since we have the whole day at the café, we can take our time to chew the food and not gulp everything down to rush back before the lunch hour ends, better digestion and absorption.

4. Exercise more

This is probably a personal preference, but those who yearn for more workout time get their wish granted. We get to take a jog or a stroll at our desired hour unless there is an absolute need for us to resolve a client’s request immediately which does not happen all the time.

Some of us head out for a jog in the park early in the morning; while some do it before the sun sets, especially in winter time when it could get too cold by dusk. We can even sign up for the yoga or dance class which we would never have made it if we were still commuting to or back from work. Some of us work from the local community center, and perhaps get a good walk out of it.

5. Emotional well-being – more family time, less office politics

Not only we are happy to spend more face time with our partner, children, or parents, we get more me-time as well. For some of us, remote working is a motivation to wake up earlier in the mornings, start work earlier to get things done and call it a day earlier in the evening to unwind.

Those of us who are away from home get to visit our parents back in our home country for a longer period, without having to squeeze the home trip within the number of days we get from our annual leaves; and continue working from the beach at a different time zone.

We can conveniently take the child to the dentist or volunteer at the child’s school sports day event by adjusting our work schedule or finishing our tasks ahead of deadline.

As we struggle to maintain a rapport with our colleagues via numerous innovative ways, we deal less with office politics, just because we are not stuck in the office.

Conclusion

Of course, remote working is not a bed of roses without thorns, we face personal problems as well. Read on the downsides of remote working in our next post: The pitfalls of remote working.