A study of a million adults aged over 45 and involved in the study for up to 18 years has shown that sitting all day REDUCES your life expectancy. To counteract sedentary office life, the study showed that those who took no exercise when doing a sedentary job were up to 60% more likely to die prematurely than those who took 1 hour of exercise per day.
According to the study’s lead author Professor Ekelund this doesn’t mean that you need to go to the gym every day, but instead build exercise into your daily routine.
Here are some of my favourite ways to be more active at work:
- Always take the stairs. If your building has a lift don’t use it, take the lift instead. If you aren’t fit enough yet to take the stairs the whole way up take the stairs as far as you can and then get the lift the rest of the way. Gradually increase the number of floors that you walk. ALWAYS walk the whole way down and when you are fit enough aim to beat the lift.
- Always stand when you are on the phone. As well as allowing exercise and a change of posture it makes you sound more upbeat on the phone. Once you have mastered this use a yoga ball between your legs to squeeze your thighs together. Don’t forget the rest of your posture, stand up tall, hold your stomach muscles in and keep your head level.
- Go for a brisk walk at lunch time. If you have some green space near to your office this is perfect but if not avoid roads that are heavily congested with traffic.
- Park at the back of the car park. There is always space here, your car will probably be safer, and this ensures that you get a brisk walk at the start and end of each day.
- Take chairs out of meeting rooms. Some progressive companies have walking meetings on their roof tops or in a green space. Even if you don’t have access to either of these things standing in the meeting rooms provides another opportunity for a little exercise and better posture. If people will need to write in a meeting find tables at the right height for standing.
- Do stretches at your desk. Calling in a fitness instructor for an hour can help to get everybody on board with appropriate exercises.
- Jiggle in your chair, raise your legs under the desk, put things just out of arms reach so that you have to stretch – all of these encourage movement without even getting up.
- Swap your office chair for a large exercise ball. Sitting on the ball helps to build core muscles.
- A standing desk may alleviate lower back pain but standing for long periods can also cause problems, so you still need to move. The recommendation for using a standing desk is 20 minutes standing, 8 minutes sitting and 2 minutes moving. Make sure you research how to stand properly before using. A standing desk can be expensive and this ratio can get a little cumbersome so only consider this option after you have tried everything else above.
- If you work from home – walk to work. It is so easy to fall into the bed habit of rolling straight out of bed and into your office space. Make the effort to get ready for work, leave the house just like when you go into the office and take a walk before coming home and arriving at work. As well as getting some exercise you will be mentally more prepared to start your day.
Here are some of my favourite ways to be more active at home:
- Be mindful that every household chore is the opportunity to turn your home into a gym and every chore into an exercise. Put your heart and soul into the vacuuming, make the bed with extra vigour – that duvet will benefit from those huge shakes and try doing other chores extra fast.
- The TV is where we slump the most. If you watch a channel with adverts use the adverts for high intensity bursts of jumping jacks, high knee lifts or just running on the spot. You can also do yoga postures, stretches or press ups whilst watching TV.
- When you get into bed at night, point your toes to the bottom of the bed and then pull them back towards you. Put the soles of your feet together so that your knees are pointing out to each side to stretch your inner thighs. Hold for as long as comfortable.