Are you Sitting too Long?
We are always looking at various ways that we can help our clients become better. Not only in business but in their personal lives too. At the end of the day, if your workforce is not healthy, then you are a chain as strong as its weakest link. There has to be equilibrium between deep moments of work as well as relaxation. One core idea that we bring to discussions with potential clients is that of encouraging employees within the office to move more as there has been definitive research which states that health erodes when we adopt a sedentary lifestyle. One such proponent is Joan Vernikos who was the former Director of NASA’s Life Sciences Division and who also wrote a book titled, “Sitting Kills, Moving Heals”. Basically, she was responsible for understanding how to optimise the health and well-being of astronauts. In this book, Joan walks us through how our sedentary lifestyles are surprisingly similar to the gravity-free lifestyles of astronauts in space. Just as an astronaut’s health rapidly deteriorates outside of gravity’s pull, our health erodes when we adopt a sedentary lifestyle. Her challenge was to provide clear, practical guidance to show the public the value of making use of our old friend gravity, simply through doing activities that are of a different nature than traditional vigorous exercise in the gym. As many people working in the corporate world know, most of the day is conducted at a sitting position. It’s surprising to see when we provide our consultancy tools, that most employees are sitting down for up to 4 hours (sometimes more) at any given time and moving very little. Ideally people should be working for between 50-90 minutes ON and 7-20 minutes OFF. This means getting away from all digital influences and allowing your brain to reenergise so as to come back to a focused state to complete the day’s tasks. Thus, when we're sitting all the time, gravity can't do its thing. And, as a result, we age way faster than we should and make ourselves vulnerable to all the diseases we don't want to get - hence, Sitting Kills!
5 Tips from Joan Vernikos for people sitting too long
According to Joan, ”If your life and work are such that you cannot get away to exercise, you do not enjoy playing a sport, and you spend much of your day sitting in an office or a car, all is not lost.” Set the below gravity habits into your daily routine and reap the benefits of restoring health back into your life:
1. Stretching - Super easy to do and super helpful for your body. Be a kid again.
2. Stand Up: Sit Down - Simply standing up from a seated position is huge and you should be doing this at least 32 times per day. This is the single most important habit you can acquire.
3. Stand Tall - Work against gravity and stretch your body out and stimulate your muscles.
4. Walk Tall - Let's not just stand tall, let's remember to walk tall.
5. Book on head - Want good posture while you're sitting at your desk (or standing or walking)? Place a book on top of your head as this simple act forces good posture.
Remember: Consistent movement throughout the day - simple stuff like shifting your weight while you work, stretching at your desk, and going for a few minutes walk every thirty minutes have surprisingly great benefits. One of the many consultancy tools that we offer to potential clients to convert them to a plastic-free working environment is to educate them on movement within the office.
This is done simply by calculating the amount of steps they would take to refill their reusable bottles once they have a centralised Sprudel water purifier machine in their office (usually the pantry). The whole idea, is instead of having x amount of water coolers per floor or handheld single-use plastic bottles, to have one centralised Sprudel unit where people are encouraged to get up and move every hour to fill up their bottles or at least 3 times a day at the minimum. That way, they are directly contributing to their 10,000 steps daily challenge and in turn being more productive, healthy and motivated.
This is just one of the many ways, that we help as a company. We don't just focus on a surface level, we go deep as we want you to be at your best everyday. Cause if your health and wellbeing are optimised, then your business will undoubtedly thrive. So how are your daily habits? Are you sitting too much? Are you ready to make the necessary changes and include more movement in to your daily life? If so, let’s Sprudel and become better humans together!
