Stop Snacking at Work
Can't stop snacking at work? It's an easy enough habit to fall into, but a really devilish one to stop. Snacking at work can often be a sign of boredom, stress, overload, and lack of sleep, so finding a cause as well as finding healthy substitutions is important.
Steps
- Get to the bottom of why you feel compelled to snack at work. Sometimes, not liking your job or your assignments results in spending your time doing something else, and snacking is often a simple option. Reasons for snacking at work might include:
- Avoidance of work
- Overloaded with tasks
- Hunger
- Thirst
- Boredom, to occupy yourself
- Tiredness, to get energy
- Stress, to relax
- Tackle the cause. Think about the ways in which you can improve the challenge facing you. Some things you can do include:
- Eat a larger breakfast: make more sustaining energy food choices;
- Choose healthy snacks: over sweet and salty snacks (e.g., celery and carrot sticks, sunflower seeds);
- Get more sleep. Go to bed earlier;
- Change your work pattern. If you need to have lunch earlier, leave work earlier? Then you probably have to get in earlier too!
- Ask for more challenging work tasks, or ask for less challenging work tasks, dependent on what is stoking your stress.
- Create a procrastination attacker's plan. To get yourself over the humps of work you'd rather avoid, break it down into smaller chunks and tackle in smaller lots. Reward yourself with breaks rather than snacks.
- Drink water, tea, coffee, in place of snacks.
- Lock the snacks cabinet/cupboard!
- Go outside for a break. Sometimes exercise will be a better answer than food at work. Instead of spending 10 minutes snacking, do 10 minutes brisk walking, even in cold weather. It'll wake you up.
- Use chewing gum to help with boredom, hunger and stress.
- Stay busy: you tend to eat treats if you're bored. If you're able to keep yourself hectic you may not even think about snacks. Responsibilities to complete may help keep the mind off lovely goodies.
Related Articles
- Avoid Weight Gain While Working a Desk Job
- Avoid Eating When You're Bored
- Choose Healthy Snacks
- Keep Yourself Healthy at Work
