How to Stay Healthy When Working for Yourself

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(Photo : Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay )

Working for yourself is not always the healthiest pursuit. It can be financially rewarding and personally satisfying. It is just not always healthy. Of course, that largely depends on what it is you do. If you are a personal trainer, you are going to very likely be staying at the peak of health for most of your life. If you happen to be the personal chef for a health nut, that will also have its benefits. Ditto for swimming instructors, massage therapists, and other careers in medical adjacent fields.

What you already know is that those fields are atypical. You are more likely an accountant, tax preparer, sales person, writer, photographer, musician, shopkeeper, vendor, attorney, or some other type of worker that doesn't have a particular health focus built into the job description. You very likely work at home or in an office spending long hours sitting at a desk and staring at a computer screen. It is no more healthy than your kids playing video games all day. Unlike those video games, your efforts do pay the rent. The challenge is making those efforts as healthy as possible so that you can continue paying the rent. Here are a few suggestions:

Frequent Visits to the Doctor

You know that without the coverage you get when working at a company, visits to the doctor are expensive. So if you are working for yourself or just between jobs, you should explore options to get health insurance between jobs. When you get the opportunity to continue paying for your insurance when you leave the job, you should take it if that is at all financially feasible. If you can't do it, you are going to have to find insurance independently. That is not always easy to do on a budget, especially if you have preexisting conditions.

When you are working for yourself, you tend to lead a more sedentary lifestyle. Working from home can be a real drag on your health. So it is more important than ever that you have frequent visits to the doctor to keep track of how your health is progressing, or digressing as the case may be. You have to watch all your vital metrics more closely. You might require changes to medication or diet. If you have a disease that can benefit from early detection, you cannot let your checkups lapse. When you have insurance from work, you tend to see the doctor more. When working for yourself, you can't afford to stop.

Heart-Healthy Diet and Activities

There are many ways to keep your heart healthy. Choose at least one of them and stick to it. Your heart can literally take a beating when you do not get enough exercise. No one really knows how important heart health is until they lose it. Only then do they take it seriously. However, it is hard to turn things around when you are in reactive rather than proactive mode.

One of the challenges when working for yourself is taking the time to eat healthy meals throughout the day. Some people will skip breakfast altogether, or just grab something from the drive-through at McDonald's. For them, skipping breakfast might actually be the better move. If you are driving around town in your car all day, you are going to be more likely to just grab something at a fast food place or gas station. If you have to eat out, find one or two healthy options in town and make those your lunch stops. Also, try cooking something at the beginning of the week and heating up portions throughout the week. Your heart health is worth the extra effort.

Cut Your Hours

Let's not mince words: Stress kills. If it doesn't do it directly via cardiac or stroke, it does so indirectly in the form of a mental health crisis. Your great business means nothing if you are too stressed to enjoy it. The solution starts with cutting back on the time you pour into the work day. 12-hour days are too long. Take some time out of every day to relax. Life is too short to live in constant stress, and even shorter if you do.

Stay healthier while working for yourself by seeing the doctor frequently, maintaining good heart health with diet and exercise, and by cutting back on those stressful hours.