6 Simple Tips for a Healthier Working Day

We spend most of our week working, so why not take advantage of this time to help optimise our health. Here are some simple tips to show you how.

Stand up

We’ve all been in this situation – we’re madly busy at our desk or just engrossed in a task and all of a sudden we realise we’ve been sitting for a couple of hours hunched over our computers.

 Sitting for long uninterrupted bouts can have a detrimental effect on our metabolism, circulation and even bone health.  Being in a seated position for extended lengths of time can create muscle imbalances – our posture and back health can be impacted and over the long term it can leave us more susceptible to uncommunicable diseases such as heart disease or type 2 diabetes.

Office workers in particular will spend 70-80% of waking hours seated.  

The good news is standing and moving around for 2-3 minutes every hour can help remedy long hours at our desks.  My issue here is wandering off for half an hour and not being able to remember what I was doing when I come back.

There’s an app that can help us – of course there is, in fact there are a number of them.  I use ‘Stand up’.  It’s free, you can set the hours you want to work within and how often you want it to go off to remind you to stand up and move around.

Another option of course is standing  / walking for your phone calls or standing for your zoom or in person (ACTUAL IN PERSON!) meetings.  In fact holding ‘standing meetings’ has another advantage – they tend to get wrapped up a lot quicker.  Standing more often burns more calories and can have a positive impact on our sleep. 

Introduce some house plants

Indoor air pollution can be caused by VOCs – volatile organic compounds, are tiny chemical particles in the air from the likes of aerosols, cleaning productions, plastic, furniture as well as carbon dioxide.

Plants can improve air quality by absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen through photosynthesis, they increase humidity by transpiring water vapor through their leaf pores, and they can absorb pollutants like the aforementioned VOCs, on the external surfaces of leaves and on the plant root-soil system.

In the past studies have shown adding plants to office space to can help employees improve their mood, memory and concentration and possibly contributing to a reduction in headaches, coughs and other chest related illnesses.

In a small room with high levels of natural light, 5-6 plants can have a positive impact. The fast growing, thirsty plants work best e.g. Peace lillies and devil’s ivy.

Mobilise Your Hands!

 Reduce the wrist of carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive strain injury by the some simple hand and wrist exercises during the day.  Shake out your hands, interlace your hands roll your wrists, make a fist and then stretch your fingers out as far away from each other as you can.  Interlace your hands and push your palms away.  Try ‘spiders doing push ups against a mirror’ touching your finger tips to each other and splay them in and out.  

Exercise your eyes

There’s nothing like staring at a screen for to make your peepers feel tired.  Exercise those ocular muscles with the 20-20-20 rule.  Look at an object 20 metres away from your screen for 20 seconds every 20 minutes.  I was delighted to find out that eye rolls are also beneficial, I’m pretty sure I’d get into the medals in the eye-rolling competition.

Make the most of your lunch hour

Sometimes it’s easier to stay at your desk and work, get a bit of online shopping done, some life admin or just have a rummage around on social media.  But if you can, get moving.  Get out for a walk.  If the weather isn’t lending itself to outdoor activities, get some stretches or even a few strength moves at your desk.  Try some seated cat cows, side stretches, some gentle twists, a seated (on your chair) forward fold where you rest your trunk onto your thighs and enjoy that yummy back stretch.  Or if you’d like to get a little more energetic, some squats to your chair, single leg squats, tricep dips against your chair or push ups off your chair or desk.  

Stay Hydrated

You don’t need to guzzle gallons of water to stay hydrated but keeping a bottle of water on your desk serves as a nice reminder.  We need water to hydrate the brain (it’s 90% water!), digest food and flush out our kidneys and to replace the water we lose through exhaling and sweating.  Try drinking a glass of water before a meal, which can not only hydrate us but can also stop us overeating.  Staying hydrated can help can help reduce headaches and fatigue as well as support our cognition and overall performance.

Men need about 2l of water a day women about 1.6l, if you’re exercising / sweating profusely, you may need more. Herbal teas and milk are also hydrating.   Peeing around 5-7 times a day is about the norm – and it’s another way of getting us up and moving.   

The Benefits of Working Out at Work

The buzz around Corporate Health & Wellness Programmes has been growing steadily.  At the January launch of the government’s ‘Healthy Ireland 2018’ campaign, Leo Varadkar flagged upcoming tax incentives for employers to install showering facilities and equipment into the workplace indicating the government’s strong support for workplace wellness.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), workplace health programmes are one of the most effective ways to prevent and control chronic disease and to support mental health, so it’s fair to say that workplace wellness / fitness is not a passing fad.  Although relatively new to Ireland, corporate wellness programmes originated in the US in the 90s, growing steadily to the point where they are now more of a need to have than a nice to have.  Some companies in Sweden including sportswear retailer ‘Bjorn Borg’ have gone as far as making on-the-job exercise compulsory with a weekly workout at a nearby gym.

I have taught corporate classes for over two years and put the question to some of my clients, asking how they saw the classes benefitting them. Roisín, who has been attending classes for over a year, mentioned several points including better back health, improved sleep, increased productivity and convenience. 
As a busy Mum of three girls with chronic back pain who has a long commute, she finds it impossible to fit in exercise outside the workplace;  “With lunchtime Pilates at work, I can fit exercise into my daily schedule. I have seen a noticeable improvement in my back while doing the Pilates classes, which has helped to considerably reduce the pain and as a result improve my quality of sleep. I also find on the days where I have that break to do Pilates at lunchtime, my afternoons are even more productive as I come back to my desk rejuvenated and ready to go.”

Mental wellness is now recognised as a major component in our overall health. One of the greatest challenges to our mental health is stress, all too often caused by what’s going on in the workplace.  While physical exercise is a known mood enhancer, many companies are offering a more direct approach to mental health with meditation / mindfulness classes.

Treacy O'Connor, team lead for meditation, mindfulness and team building with Corporate Wellness Ireland, says "We are receiving an ever increasing amount of corporate enquiries. Every session has been full to date with up to 60 people at a time. Giving the workforce access to very simple techniques they can use at any time of the day is proving to be of great benefit. One employee shared with me, that before the sessions, she suffered a lot from anxiety. She has been able to greatly reduce her symptoms (actually they’re nearly gone) and she now feels much more confident in herself.”

As well as the physical and mental health benefits, corporate classes have been shown to foster camaraderie between work colleagues. Never mind discussing last night’s Game of Thrones episode around the water cooler – how about comparing aches after yesterday’s exercise class?  As head of the TII sports and social committee, Mary Deevy reported “An unexpected bonus, as a recently merged organisation, is that the Pilates classes which are attended by a great mix of staff have facilitated staff to get to know each other better”. 

Let’s face it, business is business and companies are not going to invest in an initiative long term unless there are benefits to be had for the organization.  Healthy and more energised employees mean better productivity and less sick days. In addition, a good corporate wellness program can make a company more attractive to potential employees and can help to retain existing ones thanks to workplace satisfaction.

Whether fully, partially or not subsidised by the boss, more often than not wellness programmes work out cheaper for employees than the gym or regular fitness classes. Furthermore the convenience of working out at work is clear.  Workplace wellness programmes don’t have to be complicated or expensive or limited to large businesses or urban centres.  There’s a broad menu of activities to choose from and if you want to keep costs to zero, walking or running groups are an easy to organise option with a wide array of training apps to choose from.

The benefits are far-reaching, from individual employees to the companies they work for, with the end goal being that a healthier workforce impacts positively on families, communities and the nation as a whole, from an economic to a quality of life perspective.

© Grá For Fitness 2018