Is Your Work Killing You…Slowly? We spend most of our waking hours at work. What we do during those hours makes an enormous difference in our health, happiness, and performance in life.
Erroneously, too many people think the solution to long, stressful work days sitting at a desk is to “hit the gym” on a regular basis.
While regular workouts may be helpful, if you aren’t taking care of your body and mind at the office, intense exercise may actually make the situation worse!
Think of it this way…
Every minute of every day, your body slowly adapts to what you are doing
You are probably reading this sitting at a desk, or on a device with poor posture…STRAIGHTEN UP!
These adaptations include reinforcing poor posture, lack of blood flow to key areas of the body (including your brain), altered hormone, blood lipid profile, and degrading neural connections essential for coordinated movement.
Getting up from your desk to fit in a quick, intense workout (because we’ve all heard that “HIIT is the S**T” (for time efficiency and fat burning) is a recipe for disaster that leads to frustration and injury.
It’s the equivalent of taking your parents beat up, poorly maintained, wood-paneled station wagon and driving it on a rally course. Even the best driver will run into vehicle limitations and end up destroying the car. It will happen even faster with a poor driver at the wheel.
By the quality of the driver, I mean the quality of your neural connections and movement skills. How efficiently do signals get from the brain to the muscles, and are the right patterns being fired? This is critical to all movement.
So, is your work killing you
Here are a couple of other driving examples. Even a race car with an expert driver will struggle and break down if you can only steer it in a limited range, or if one or more of the wheels, suspension, and engine components are not working properly.
Sitting for prolonged periods begins to limit movement in key areas and make it harder to get the right signals from muscles and to have those muscles work in the right way. For example, if you are sitting all day, your glute muscles and hip function are severely limited. Without specific focus and activation patterns prior to exercise, they will not perform properly during exercise (or even walking).
This leads to the reinforcement of flawed movement patterns, muscle compensations, aches, pains, and injuries. Many people spend years and thousands of dollars at physio, chiro, and massage trying to deal with the repercussions of their daily work habits.
The great news is…there’s a simple fix.
Move your body, strategically, multiple times every day
I’m not talking about going to the gym.
Take 15-60 seconds RIGHT NOW.
STAND UP and take EVERY joint in your body through its full range of motion at least once (ideally a few times).
This is what I call the “Mobility Minute” and it’s at the foundation of every movement we will ever do for our body. If our joint function and brain-muscle connection are flawed, every resulting movement will be flawed.
This is just the beginning. There are hundreds of SIMPLE and EASY HABITS that you can implement every day to ensure your body (and brain) are performing at their best.
Here are a few more simple, healthy tips
- Set a notification for every 20-30 minutes throughout the day to move your body for at least 20-30 seconds. It’s not a lot of time, but the payoff is outstanding!
- Stand more often during the day…but stand with good posture and activation in the body (you may need to get proper instruction from a qualified functional movement coach. The posture most people think is “normal” is actually “dysfunctional”)
- Learn to breathe properly for rest, relaxation, mental clarity, and energy. This involves avoiding the common “stress breathing” pattern trap that most office workers fall into (even when they are “relaxed” and “not stressed”)
- Drink at least 60ml per KG of body weight per day…not including the water you drink during exercise.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for improving your performance and productivity at work (and the gym).
If you think your work is killing you…
If you would like help sorting through the aches, pains, and lethargy that can come from “sitting for a living”, my team and I would love to help.
If you are a manager, executive, or business owner and want to ensure your team is performing at its best each day, we have a number of corporate programs that can help. Just reach out and let me know your biggest challenge and/or frustration.
Have a healthy, high-performing day!
Expert Personal Training and Lifestyle Coaching To Help You Thrive
Comments
Such a meaningful post. It’s so important that we move a bit throughout out the day instead of working out once and sitting on the desk rest of the day.
Exactly! Thanks for commenting!
Such a great article. Love how you say it… ‘sitting for living’. So true. Thank you for the tips on this. Makes me think about so much.
Thanks for commenting!
This is an excellent, inspiring post! I need to focus more on taking my body through full range of motion multiple times a day. Thanx for sharing!
Thanks for commenting!
I’m a Virtual Assistant, so all I do is sit for about 14 hours a day. I did work out, but then I got hit with long COVID, so I have that on top of everything. I can say from experience that I feel a difference being so sedentary now.
Thanks for the feedback!
Love this post. It’s very inspiring and will definitely help me. I sit a lot, being a writer, so I can see this having a lot of benefit.
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This article really hit home! Your analogy of the beat-up car trying to race perfectly captures the struggle of ignoring daily movement. The “Mobility Minute” is such a simple yet effective tip. Thanks for sharing these practical insights on how to keep our bodies and minds healthy at work!
We are glad to help! Thanks for the feedback and good luck!
This is the exact advice that I need. My husband encourages me to work out everyday, but with migraines and other injuries I’m not able to do it always. Now I understand how I got to this place where I am in PT or OT almost everyday. Plus I’ve heard that the new smoking is sitting. I will share this with everyone also, your analogy is genius!
Yes, sitting is the new smoking! Thanks for the feedback!
This post resonates with me as someone who has experienced the weight of work-related stress. It sheds light on a crucial issue that many of us face in today’s fast-paced world.
We are glad to help! Thanks for the feedback!
This is cool, I’m trying to move my body during the day and it helps a lot. It was hurting my mental health but now things are getting better with following a good routine including moving. Great post!
We are happy to hear that. Thanks for sharing!
Work can definitely affect your health in many ways. I have had jobs where I came home in tears every single day, and there were days where I sat all day. It is good to think about how work has an impact on our wellness.
Thanks for the feedback!
I think the post resonates with me deeply. Gosh, I’m working all day and it’s only getting more stressful; taking a few to stretch helps!
Thanks for commenting!
Thank you for this cool post! I`m sure my work is killing my back, neck and eyes. Now I`m looking for good and easy exercises for office workers.
We have a bunch of them at our YT channel. Feel free to check it out. Thanks for commenting!
Great tips here with a great message to keep moving 🙂
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I appreciate you sharing this health-related post with video.
And we appreciate you commenting on it 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing these valuable tips! I appreciate your guidance on staying active, maintaining proper posture, breathing effectively, and staying hydrated. Your advice is incredibly helpful and I look forward to implementing these strategies into my daily routine.
We are so glad that you find our posts helpful. Thanks for commenting!
Very important tips.? U make it a point to move and stretch inbetween work as it really helps in feeling more energetic and focus better.
Thanks for the feedback!
This was an interesting read. I wouldn’t say work is killing me but it takes up a lot of my time that I would like to spend elsewhere.
Thanks for commenting!
So many people don’t realize how much of a negative impact their job has on them! Balancing a healthy lifestyle with a healthy work life is so important.
We offten cant choose what job we will be working on. So ability to adapt to bad circumstances is crucial. Thanks for commenting!