snacks

Snacks That Can Boost Your Productivity

By in Living Well Tags: , ,

chocolate with almonds on black background

Snacking is great. It’s fun and tasty. And it can even make you more productive! The right snack can help to perk you up when you’re feeling tired and sluggish at work. It can be just the thing to make you feel more alert, focused, and productive.

But you can’t just eat any old snack. (Although potato chips are delicious – and I’m actually snacking on them right now – they aren’t a good choice.) Research has shown that certain foods and drinks have the power to boost your productivity. Here’s a list of seven items that can make you more focused, efficient, and effective:

  1. Almonds – Increase focus
  2. Green teas – Increase focus, reduce blood pressure, and boost metabolism
  3. Bananas – Increase energy and focus
  4. Eggs – Improve memory and produce faster reaction times
  5. Dark chocolates – Increase energy and reduce stress
  6. Apples and peanut butter – Increase focus and boost energy
  7. Carrots and hummus – Improve memory and enhance mood

And you should also try washing your snacks down with a glass of water! If you’re well hydrated, you’ll feel more energetic and alert.

 

Hansen, B. (2017, July 17). 9 productivity snacks to get you through your work day. Wrike. Retrieved from: https://www.wrike.com/blog/9-productivity-snacks-get-work-day/

 

Managing Free Food at Work

By in Living Well Tags: ,

Candies

I love getting free food at the office. It’s the best! I think the bowl of chocolates that sits in our office reception area is a wonderful thing. (So delicious.)

And I’m not the only one who feels the love. Studies have shown that when businesses provide their employees with free snacks, employee happiness ratings shoot up. That’s why so many companies have started offering their employees this popular perk.

But free food at work does have its downside. Even though chocolate and chips are delicious, it’s not exactly healthy to be snacking on Swedish Fish and M&M’s all day. It can have a negative impact on people’s weight and overall health.

So if your office provides unhealthy snacks and you find it difficult to resist them, what should you do? Well, it wouldn’t be right for you to demand that they be removed. Your coworkers would be rightfully upset! But there are things you can do to make it easier for you (and others) to make healthier choices.

  • Request healthy snacks – If your office provides free chocolate, that’s a wonderful thing. But it would also be nice if they provided healthy alternatives – like fruit. Ask if healthy options could be made available.
  • Distance yourself – People tend to eat more unhealthy snacks when they’re easily accessible. Researchers have found that when snacks are placed right next to the area where people get their drinks and coffee, people will snack more. However, if the snacks are placed just a few feet away, people will snack less. So make sure the unhealthy snacks aren’t that readily available.
  • Hide them away – Google provides their employees with free snacks, but they were concerned about unhealthy eating habits. So they conducted an interesting experiment. They started putting healthy snacks in clear bowls and M&M’s in opaque bowls. And they found that their employees ate much fewer M&M’s. Just making the unhealthy snacks a little harder to see can make them easier to avoid.

 

Boardman, S. (2016, June 3). The problem with free food at the office. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2016/06/03/the-problem-with-free-food-at-the-office/