Tired at work? Generally budgets are allowed for in training, leadership programmes, management initiatives etc but often not invested in the very foundation of a great business – Health! I mean health in all senses of the word. A Well company is one that functions brilliantly on all levels. Great communication, great creativity, positivity, great attitudes and a great place to work.
However, many employees are operating at such a base level of feeling below par that people have forgotten what it is like to feel great. The “talent” has such poor fuel to power the engine of the company that they are operating through a fog, with their energy on the floor. Tiredness fuels a cycle of reaching for a drink and coming in the next day nursing a hangover – sometimes even with moderate drinking but consistent drinking, the hangover can feel much worse (is this due in part to more wine drinker with more chemicals in the wine production).
Tiredness leads to more coffee drinking – even twenty years ago such consistent coffee drinking was unheard of. 100mg of caffeine is the addictive dose of caffeine but yet in some coffee outlets there might be over 500mg in one cup. Our businesses are making poor choices and decisions on a sea of coffee. Excessive coffee drinking encourages dips of blood sugar (how we control our energy), it can encourage an aggressive work place, in excess (as little as 5 cups in susceptible people) it can trigger anxiety disorders, heart fibrillation, lack of sleep. Addiction makes the hit lessen with each cup so more is needed to get the “high”.
The cycle of tiredness is not helped by poor choices of food for the rest of the day. In my 12 year career as a clinician, and having seen over 6,500 patients in my clinic in Harley Street – I have probably only seen 5 people who have an idea of what a healthy diet actually is. In my work in the corporate environment, the picture is sometimes worse. Lack of time is the main route problem of this lack of effort in having the very foundation of health in place – a healthy diet. We get so many messages from TV that no one is really sure what this so called healthy diet actually looks like.
This basic lack of the correct foundation encourages all kinds of health problems stemming from this fundamental building block not being in place from stress (sugary foods fuels a stress cycle) to more serious conditions such as cancer.
The stunning thing is, that knowing the structure of empowered nutrition is so simple to put in place and the difference in performance so dramatic that the question is – why don’t we do it?
