Valeria Publications

Taking care of your health is one of the best decisions you can make as a freelance writer. 

Think about it. When you don’t get enough rest or sit still for long periods of time, your creativity is stifled. You find it harder to do tasks that you once found easy, like thinking. 

Now it’s taking you longer to finish your assignments and meet deadlines, causing you to lose out on – you guessed it – rest and relaxation. 

And then you wake up to do it all again the next day. 

Fortunately, one of the simplest steps that you can take to manage your health is taking a multivitamin. Why? Let’s find out.

Do Writers Really Need a Multivitamin?

Yes! In fact, everyone should be taking a multivitamin.

Don’t let the vlogs on social media fool you. Like every other profession, there are physical and mental strains that come with the job of writing. 

What are some of those strains?

• Eye strain from staring too long at screens. 
• Back pain from sitting still for long periods of time.
• Increased risk of anxiety or depression from working in isolation.
• Carpal tunnel syndrome from remaining in the same position for extended periods of time. 

The stress that comes with freelance work makes it easy to neglect our health. When you’re focused on meeting tight deadlines or searching for your next client, the last thing on your mind is walking for at least 30 minutes or eating a healthy meal.

In addition to stress, another problem we come across is the quality of our food. Let’s be honest. We don’t always get the full nutritional value from just our foods.

That’s why a multivitamin can be so beneficial. Think of a multivitamin as one of those power-ups in Super Mario. Taking them can help enhance your health in ways that you may not notice right away, but immediately notice when you stop taking it. 

What You Need to Know Before Taking a Multivitamin

As good as all of this sounds, you don’t just want to jump headfirst into taking a multivitamin. The next step you want to take is to speak with your physician about taking a multivitamin, and then determining the best course of action from there. 

If you don’t know what to ask your physician, think about the following factors:

Why You Want to Take A Multivitamin

When’s the last time you did something because it sounded good and you actually enjoyed it? Exactly.

That’s not the same way you want to think about taking a multivitamin. Don’t just take it because it’s what you think your doctor wants to hear. Make it personal to you and your health goals. Are you trying to reduce the amount of stress in your life? Do you want to give yourself more energy without relying on coffee? Do you want to give yourself an extra boost of whatever vitamins or minerals you’re missing from your diet?

Whatever your goals are, share them with your physician and determine how taking a multivitamin can help you get to those goals.

What to Actually Expect When Taking a Multivitamin

Next, you want to talk with your physician about how a multivitamin can actually help your body.

This may sound silly, but some people actually look at multivitamins as a replacement to eating healthy. They believe that they can skip out on eating fruits every week as long as they take a multivitamin every day, when that’s not true at all.

You should never look at a multivitamin as a replacement for any essential vitamins or minerals that you need. Instead, look at them as a complement to your diet. 

Whatever foods you’re digesting, your multivitamin can step in and fill that nutritional gap that’s missing from your foods. 

Not All Multivitamins Are Good for You 

Another important thing to keep in mind is the quality of your multivitamin. As scary as this is to write, not every multivitamin sold in the marketplace is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

That means that out of those thousands of multivitamins that you find in these “health and wellness” stores, only a few can actually be beneficial for you. How can you tell?

Search for third-party certifications like NSF-certified on your products. NSF certifications are the top certifications that any product can obtain. It means that the product has been tested continuously for safety and quality and that each ingredient listed on the product’s label has been verified. 

The Dangers of Overdosing

Last but not least, you want to avoid a problem that often goes unnoticed: overdosing on vitamins. 

Again, as crazy as this sounds, it’s possible for you to consume too much of certain vitamins. When you have excessive amounts of certain vitamins in your system, it can lead to more serious conditions like nerve damage, liver damage, or kidney failure. 

That’s why it’s important to speak with your doctor before introducing any additional multivitamins in your diet. A doctor will recommend that you have bloodwork performed to determine the accurate amount of vitamins or minerals that are within your body. 

How to Get the Most Out of Your Multivitamin

After speaking with your physician and doing some additional research, you want to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your multivitamin. The last thing you want is to start taking a multivitamin and not feeling any different after taking it. 

To get the most out of your multivitamin:

• Take it in addition with a snack or meal. Some multivitamins will require you to take them with some type of food or drink.
• Consider how you would like to take your multivitamin. Some people don’t like to take their multivitamins in pill form. Fortunately, you can take some multivitamins in liquid or gummy form. 
• Take advantage of habit stacking. Habit stacking is a practice where you perform a new habit with a habit that you’re currently doing. An example of this would be to take your multivitamin while drinking coffee and eating a bagel in the morning. 

Final Thoughts 

Before spring is over, speak with your physician about adding a multivitamin to your diet. It will be the best decision you make for the year. 

Adding a multivitamin does not have to be confusing. You just have to start with the goals you want to meet with your multivitamin, speak with your physician about how to get started and what to take, and go from there. 

If you’re not ready to take a multivitamin but want to learn about other supplements that can help with freelance writing, feel free to check out The Freelancer’s Supplement Starter Guide.