.Staying Healthy (and Sane) During the Job

It’s almost easy to neglect health during a job search. Take a surplus of time, combine it with frequent resume rejection, and you have a recipe for overeating with a side of drowning one’s sorrows. A few months into my unemployment, however, I began to think about how important my health would be to my job search, and I made a few changes.

There are a few of my friends who, while outwardly sympathetic to my layoff, I suspect might have been ever-so-slightly cheered by my predicament. After all, what better weekday drinking partner is there than one that doesn’t have to rise for work in the morning? On a few occasions I took the liberty to catch up with a friend or three over a beer (or three). But alcohol causes restless sleep and thereby too much sleep. As a daily weekday routine is crucial to a productive search, I try to limit my consumption to no more than one drink every other day or so.

Sensible eating is a bit more complex, isn’t it? We simply can’t do without it, and yet overeating has its own perils. I’m doubly vexed in that I’ve fully signed on to the revival in organic eating, and so I count it among my passions. My compromise is to look at eating, and dinner in particular, as a healthy bookend. My daily habit of cooking dinner has a threefold purpose; the cooking itself helps alleviate stress, the meal is a well-earned reward for a hard day’s work, and the farm-produced food will keep my body healthy.

Food and drink is all well and good, but the most important element to a healthy body and mind during the job search is exercise. I’ve gone through alternating periods of frequent and less-frequent exercise during my professional life. I’m the furthest thing from a fitness compulsive. As I write this I know that I should be getting more exercise than I do, but I just can’t overemphasize how important exercise has been for me. Firstly, there is no better way to break up the job search monotony and intense focus on one’s PC screen than by hiking up the nearby mountains or spending an hour in the gym. Second, much like with eating unprocessed food, I’m constantly thinking about ways to stay healthy during these times of being underinsured. I wouldn’t say that I was a particularly unhealthy eater while I was employed, but the thoughtfulness made possible by the lack of a 9-to-5 quickly crystallized the connection for me.

Exercise keeps me in a great frame of mind for my job search. I make it a point to exercise at a fairly intense pace for a few days leading up to a job interview. I’m convinced that I smile more, feel less stressed, and project more confidence just when I need all of these benefits. Be it endorphins or a placebo effect, I challenge everyone reading to give it a shot and report back. Plus, if we lose a few of those holiday pounds, won’t that only serve to bolster our confidence further?