Watch any news program or read anyone online news source, and you’ll hear the reports. Obesity has become an epidemic. Heart disease is on the rise. Between fast food that you don’t have to cook and jobs that require you to spend countless hours on your computer, health is declining around the world. Sedentary jobs are one of the biggest culprits. Desk jobs require you to spend hours sitting every day. They limit your ability to get in exercise, they often require long hours that reduce your ability to destress or spend time with family and friends, and they lead to burnout and even death. So how do you combat the negative impact your sedentary job is having on your life? Here are some tips.
Source: Life & Health Network
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Talk to People Face to Face
Modern technology has made it easy to shoot off an email or make a phone call and not have to leave your office to talk to someone, even if they’re just across the hall. While this is convenient when you’re extremely busy, it also compounds the issues caused by working a sedentary job. When you take the time to go talk to people face-to-face, you force yourself to stand up and take a walk—something that you should be doing as much as every half hour to prevent the ill effects of a sedentary lifestyle from affecting you. Talking to people face to face has the added benefit of making you feel more connected to your coworkers and of helping you see the big picture of what’s going on in your office as a whole, which can help you work more effectively as well.
Take Walking Meetings
Meetings are a necessary evil of the workplace. But by having a company culture where you take your meetings outside and talk a walk simultaneously, you encourage healthy living for yourself and for your employees. Getting outside can also increase creativity, leading to new ideas and innovative solutions, making it good not just for your health but also for your business.
Ask for a Standing Desk
These days, there are lots of different options for getting your work done without sitting all day long. Companies are becoming wise to the ill effects of sitting all day. Standing desks and walking desks have both been invented to help combat the struggles of working a desk job. See if your company has the budget for a standing desk to help you lead a less sedentary life. If that’s not in the budget, you could also try buying yourself an under-the-desk peddler to use while you’re in the office to keep your legs moving.
Source: glassdoor.comTake Care of Your Body
The worst thing about having a sedentary job isn’t just the job, but also how people spend their time outside of work hours. If you sit on the computer all day at work, you shouldn’t just come home and plunk down on the couch and sit some more. Unfortunately, because desk jobs are mentally draining, it can be hard to get up the gumption to exercise or eat healthy after work. Free Your Spine has some great information about releasing the tension in your back. This can help you feel energized enough to hit the gym the way that you may need to if you work a sedentary job.
Have Active Weekends
If your week days are spent on the computer, you can mitigate the effects somewhat by being sure to plan weekend activities that get you up and moving. This can be as exciting as a weekend ski trip, or as everyday as shopping at the mall with your kids. The important thing is that you aren’t spending your weekends sitting as much as you do during the week. Not sure of what to do to keep your weekends active? Check your local paper or Facebook groups to see what activities are happening around you on any given weekend.
Working a sedentary job doesn’t have to dig you an early grave. When it comes to a sedentary job, awareness of the problem is half the battle. Once you understand what you’re up against, you can take steps in the right direction to bring activity back into your daily life. Everything from parking further away to ensure you half to walk a little to get to the office to setting a timer and getting up to stretch on a regular basis can help you stay your healthiest self.
