As a construction worker, your health and general well-being play an important part of your day-to-day work, and due to its physical nature can grow to define your career. But surprisingly, a lot of construction workers could be doing more on a day-to-day basis to improve their health, and potentially extend their careers.
Here are some key points to building better health as a construction worker, and how they can affect your career:
Maintain a healthy weight
This seems obvious right; keeping fit and strong is a no brainer if you want to succeed in construction. However, a lot of people don’t realise that carrying a few extra pounds can put greater pressure on key joints resulting in cartilage wear and tear, and can seriously increase your heart rate - leading to further cardiovascular problems. Having a heart attack at work can be fatal if you are operating complex and potentially dangerous machinery, with the knock effect to your colleagues resulting in catastrophe.
Keep an eye on key areas of your body
Whether you’re operating heavy machinery, or working on an intense, labour heavy residential project, your body needs to be resilient if your to last the duration of your shift each working day. Whilst it’s inevitable that your body will adapt to these working conditions over the years, naturally your body will pick up niggles here and there, and it’s important to be able to identify which injuries you should be concerned with, and which just to flag up as trivial.
It’s too often the case that male construction workers forsake their GP in favour of waiting for injuries to key body parts to go away; injuries that, if ignored, can have serious career implications.
For any construction worker, areas of concern should be neck, back, knees, and hip. You should never ignore elongated aches and pains in these areas, and should consult with your GP at the first possible notice.
Go to bed an hour earlier
According to actor and American institution Kevin Spacey, we are experiencing somewhat of a gold age for television at the moment. With that and the power of catch-up TV, this country has never slept less. We know that you’d rather cram in an extra episode or two of the Walking Dead than go to bed an hour earlier, but you should think about your career first, especially if you’re working in construction – as your tiredness could result in serious injury to your or a colleague.
Pay close attention to your diet
Lastly, and most importantly, your diet can play a large part in your performance at work, and can dictate how many sick days you have off in a year. As mentioned before, sleeping well and keeping the weight off is important while working in construction, and can both be greatly influenced or controlled by the quality of your diet. Whilst we recommend having a natural and balanced diet, you can consume healthy foods that will help give you the extra energy that working in the construction industry requires such as a porridge (for breakfast) which will give you more energy throughout your day. We highly advise you to avoid sugary snacks; whilst proven to give you a quick hit of energy, they will leave you feeling more tired than before half an hour after consumption! So tomorrow, why not take an apple to work instead of your usual Twix?
