DR MAX PEMBERTON: The health risks of WFH in your PJs are real

Since the pandemic, working from home (WFH) has become very common. While many people have welcomed this, I am convinced that it is enormously damaging to the mental health of the country.

I’m shocked by some of the patients still working from home who tell me they spend most of the day lazing around and answering emails from their beds while watching box sets.

Of course, they have trouble concentrating, get distracted easily, and sometimes don’t even bother brushing their teeth until the evening.

It’s not hard to see that this is a disaster for mood and self-esteem, let alone productivity at work.

I’ve long suspected that people keep their cameras off during Zoom calls not because their connection is bad, but because they’re still in bed or in their pajamas.

It seems my suspicions are correct. A survey last week found that as many as a third of WFH workers admitted to wearing their pajamas during work hours, with one in 12 wearing them every day.

Okay, I know that lounging in your nightwear every now and then feels like a luxury. But every day? Have some self-respect, people, and get dressed!

Presumably some of these slobs will have children, and I despair at the message this sends to the younger generation about an appropriate work ethic. Hardly a good example.

Employers constantly complain that young people simply don’t know how to dress or behave at work, and are we surprised with role models like these parents?

Yes, I know being a parent is exhausting. Yes, I know parents are under incredible amounts of stress and many feel overwhelmed.

But those parents who don’t even bother to put on decent clothes before starting their day’s work are showing their children that it’s okay to be an inveterate slob.

There is also a more fundamental point here, about the connection between how we present ourselves to the outside world and how we feel inside.

We all know that wearing our smartest and most expensive clothes can make us look taller, but it’s more complicated than that.

When people have no self-esteem, their clothes reflect this. You can tell so much about someone’s state of mind just by looking at him or her. Their clothes and hair reveal what is happening inside.

I remember my aunt Cis, who always looked impeccable. Throughout my childhood she wore lipstick and a twinset just to pay the milkman.

She always said: be proud of your appearance. If you don’t respect yourself, how can you expect others to respect you?’

The day I came to visit and saw a stain on her vest was the day I knew she wasn’t doing well. Over the next few months, as her dementia progressed and she deteriorated mentally, her appearance also deteriorated.

She stopped coordinating her clothes. She stopped wearing jewelry. Little by little she let herself go, just as her thoughts did. Her unraveling was both external and internal and it was painfully sad to watch.

Since then I have seen similar things in my patients. An old professor I once worked for even said it’s time to worry about your patients when they stop doing their hair.

It sounds slippery, but it’s not: what’s happening on top of your head is a good indication of what’s happening in there.

GPs have often referred patients to me with no tangible symptoms, other than noticing that the patient was beginning to neglect themselves. Dirty clothes, unbrushed hair: these are important signs that things are not as they should be.

Likewise, taking care of your appearance improves the mood. I once even organized a haircut for a patient to help address her depression, anxiety and reluctance to leave her home.

It worked great and at my follow-up clinic she told me she had gone out for the first time in a year just to show off her new haircut.

How many exhausted mothers across the country look in the mirror every morning, take a deep breath and put on some makeup to face the day? Everyone does it to a greater or lesser extent, and the point is: it works.

Taking care of yourself, brushing your hair and dressing up has a direct effect on how we feel. So get out of those PJs!

Don’t blame Jamie Lynn for leaving

Both restaurant critic Grace Dent and Britney’s sister Jamie Lynn Spears have left the jungle in I’m A Celebrity for ‘medical reasons’.

I’ve seen quite a few people complain that they should have postponed it. I wonder how many of us, curled up on the couch in front of the TV, could have coped with cockroaches in our ears or being stuck in a wet, hostile jungle with little food?

A good friend of mine, the TV presenter Dr. Dawn Harper, a few years ago took part in a similar reality TV show called Celebrity Island where contestants were dumped alone on a tropical island.

She put it all aside, but afterwards described it as ‘the most terrible experience ever’.

All participants suffered from malnutrition, dehydration and heat stroke. One person lost two stone in a week. Two quit the show: my friend said they looked like “zombies.”

The reality is that celebrities are only human and no, they can’t always handle it.

Only a fifth of NHS staff have had Covid and flu jabs, but it’s easy to get one.

I trust that every site has a staff member who can give the shots, so you should do your very best not to get them.

Vaccinations protect patients. Is it time to insist that all staff be bullied as a condition of employment?

The effects of menopause have been ignored or underexposed by the medical world for too long. But is it a reason to avoid prison?

The Sentencing Council for England and Wales is discussing plans to increase the use of ‘rehabilitative’ sentences, such as unpaid work or drug treatment programmes, rather than handing out short prison sentences, and wants judges and magistrates to think twice before sentencing older women imprison those who are in menopause.

The criminal justice system fails to provide justice to victims of serious crimes on a routine basis.

Yes, our prisons are often full of petty criminals for whom short sentences yield little benefit. But it feels like a step backwards to suggest that women should receive special treatment and lighter sentences simply because of the stage of life they are in.

DR MAX PRESCRIBES…

A stylish foot warmer

Snow may seem fun, but for people with circulatory problems, especially Reynaud’s, which causes reduced blood flow to the extremities, falling temperatures are nothing to celebrate.

This heated foot warmer might be the perfect gift. Place the inner pouch in the microwave to warm up for really warm toes (£55, thewhite company.com)

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