Do you often doze off on your desk at work?

Fatigue is a major workplace hazard. It reduces your performance and productivity. Many studies have revealed that jaded people are often incompetent at work, and are thus paid less! To put it simply, fatigue is a feeling of weariness, tiredness, or lack of energy that does not go away even when you rest. People may feel fatigued in body or mind (physical or psychological fatigue). But what is the cause of fatigue?

Most of the time, it can be traced to one or more of your daily habits or routines. It is usually a result of physical exertion, poor eating habits, emotional stress, boredom, lack of sleep or weight.

With a few simple lifestyle changes, you can regain vitality and boost your energy levels.

ALWAYS BE ACTIVE Walk over to your colleagues instead of using the chat messenger or email to communicate with your workmates. Take the stairs instead of the lift if your workstation isn’t too high up in a building. Park your car a little further off and walk to your office. You may think that these small moves don’t really matter, but your body is silently burning calories. You need to burn only 3,500 calories to lose 12 kg of weight.Even if you don’t remember the math, your body keeps count of every single move you make, or don’t make.

GO FOR SMALL MEALS If you are used to eating three big meals a day, break it up into six to eight meals, and eat every two hours. Remember this, digestion is a calorie-burning activity in itself. Your body burns calories to digest the calories you eat. Eating at longer intervals fails to give your digestion sys tem a good workout. Apart from breakfast, lunch and dinner, go for mini meals (a fruit or biscuits) during your mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack breaks.

HAVE A HEARTY BREAKFAST Not eating breakfast isn’t smart – you may think you are eating less food during the day by directly going for your mid-morning tea or lunch, but not eating breakfast makes you gain weight! Because your body has been starved of food while you were sleep ing, it needs food within an hour of waking up, to get its various systems running smoothly (including me tabolism). So, when you skip breakfast, your body panics because it thinks it’s starving and stores the next meal you eat in its fat reserves.

SLEEP ON TIME Sleep deprivation causes weigh gain and makes people tired very easily. There are two main factors that regulate appetite. Leptin is the satiety hormone (which gives you the signal that you are full) while ghrelin is your hunger hormone (which gives you the signal that you are hungry). There are studies that suggest sleep deprivation causes both leptin and ghrelin to malfunction, leaving you with the feeling of not being full enough or making you feel hungry even when you may not need food.