Apprentice health and wellbeing

Starting an apprenticeship can be physically demanding, not to mention stressful, which means it’s important you take care of yourself.

Tips for looking after yourself

Maintaining a healthy and balanced lifestyle won’t just help you perform your daily activities better, it can help you get more out of life, as well as help you cope with stress and change.

Here are some tips to help you manage the demands placed on you by an apprenticeship:

Food

You need to make sure you’re fuelling your body with healthy and nutritious food to give you the energy to get through the day. Eating healthy food will not only make you feel great, it can save you money.

Exercise

Construction trades can be physically demanding, so you need to understand that the work can be hard and tiring. In the early days of an apprenticeship you may need to do additional exercise to build up your strength and physical capacity. But it’s equally important to listen to your body and not overdo it.

Sleep

Experts recommend eight hours of uninterrupted sleep for adults in order to stave off stress. If you're sleeping poorly on a regular basis, and running a continuous sleep deficit, your working efficiency, and your safety and the safety of others around you will be heavily compromised. 

Water

When the body has too little water the effects can be devastating. Dehydration occurs when the loss of body fluids exceeds the amount of water taken in.
Throughout the day, you lose about two litres of water from your body. If you don’t replace this lost water, it can lead to dehydration, which presents as thirst, headaches, dizziness, drowsiness, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps and dry mouth.

Try to avoid sugary energy drinks. Soft drinks don’t replace the water you lose, and caffeinated energy drinks can actually make dehydration worse by increasing urine production.

Stress

Good stress can help you:

• feel more alert
• increase your concentration
• provide more energy when needed
• enhance your sensory experience.

All of this can be helpful. But there can be problems when your stress is greater than your ability to handle it.

Here are some of the things you can do reduce and manage stress:

• Talk to someone – Find someone who will listen without being judgmental. It’s unhelpful to pressure someone to ‘snap out of it’ or ‘harden up’. Speak about any issues you have so you don’t have to endure stressful times alone
• Relax – Take time out for yourself and do something you enjoy
• Eat well and get enough sleep
• Make sure you have a good work/life balance
• Avoid overuse of alcohol and other drugs

Find support and gather resources to help you cope with the issues affecting you. If you feel you need additional help, talk to your GP or visit headspace or beyondblue.

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We offer a wide range of trades including building, plumbing, office administration and much more.

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