MR PORTER The MR PORTER guide to working from home like a boss

From: MR PORTER The Journal - Saturday Apr 04, 2020 02:00 pm

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Four Exercises To Build Calm Into Your Workout

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How To Work From Home Like A Boss

Words by Mr Jamie Millar

Hunkered down in your bunker staring compulsively at your screens, self-isolating, gripped by anxiety… It’s just another day at the office for those of us long accustomed to working from home. For everybody suddenly, indefinitely consigned to WFH in this coronavirus-riddled parallel dimension that we’ve all slipped into, it’s an adjustment, to say the least. No more commute. No more water-cooler conversation. No more conversation.

Black Mirror humour aside, working from home doesn’t have to be a claustrophobic nightmare. It can be the dream: this correspondent has been freelance for five years and would find it hard to go back to an office gig. Even harder now, but let’s not dwell on that. Here are five things that can make working from home bearable, even enjoyable, and prevent you contracting cabin fever as acutely as Jack Torrance in The Shining.

Giving the lie to the cliché of rolling out of bed and onto your laptop, working-from-home guides uniformly recommend getting dressed first thing – as if you were actually going to work. What you wear affects how you think: a psychological phenomenon called “enclothed cognition”. And even loungewear can make you feel better, as evinced by the imaginative combinations on @wfhfits. Whether a suit or sweatsuit, you’ll want to feel comfortable going outside in it, self-isolation or quarantine allowing. Studies show that office workers exposed to more light in the morning are less stressed and depressed and they sleep better. Pull on some socially acceptable sweats and go for a socially distanced stroll around the block (walking boosts mood and metabolism), before you get into your work then realise that it’s 4.00pm and you haven’t seen the sun. Take al fresco breaks. On lockdown? Sitting by a window helps. Again, it’s advisable to be dressed.

It’s not clear if sitting is itself bad for you, or just the fact that, while doing so, you’re not moving towards the optimal amount of two hours a day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, equivalent to 15,000 brisk steps – which most of us fell way short of even before the current restrictions. Either way, getting off your glutes is vital for your health – physical and mental. Exercise improves cognitive function, making working from home that bit easier, and can be as powerful a mental pick-me-up as antidepressants and psychotherapy. (NB: Training too intensely can increase anxiety, especially in times of stress, and lower immunity, so don’t smash yourself.) As with work, you can exercise from home partially or fully naked, although your fellow residents may object. But the goal here is to not go as psycho as Patrick Bateman. By dressing for the gym, you maintain some normality and, thanks to “enclothed cognition”, you may work out more effectively.