If you’re playing a sport, working out regularly and being active outdoors then good for you. And you get bonus points if you ditched your desk chair in favor of standing while at work. But even those who have checked all these boxes can go for long periods of time being stationary. For me, it’s when I get my espresso on, my headphones in and my flow state going. When I next look at the time four hours have gone by. Sure, I’ve cranked out quite a few words but I’ve been rooted to the floor in my office for the duration. As a result, circulation has been compromised, brain fog has set in and soft tissues have become tight. If this sounds all too familiar and, like me, you realize you could do with adding more movement to you day, here are three tips to get started:
Move your Meetings
If you’re on the phone a lot, don’t use this as an excuse to stay confined to base. Instead, take a leaf out of the late Steve Jobs’s book and get moving while you talk. This doesn’t have to just apply to phone meetings. In his book on the Apple innovator, Walter Isaacson reveals that Jobs also turned sit-down face-to-face meetings into walking ones. He also built this philosophy into the very structure of the new spaceship-like Apple HQ, which is designed in a circle to encourage staff members to bump into each other throughout their work days instead of being stuck at their desks (though Dave Eggers fans might have another interpretation). And as Jonathon Stalls of Walk2Connect recently shared with The Inertia, getting out and walking more can also make communities safer and more engaged.
Don’t Fight the Urge to Fidget
By now it’s pretty much accepted that sitting too much is bad for us. But did you know that there are other ways than standing to offset the damage this can cause? One of the easiest, whether you’re at a traditional or standup desk or stuck in an airplane seat is to fidget. A study at the University of Missouri found that those participants who jiggled one leg while keeping the other still had far better circulation and muscular recruitment in the moving limb than the stationary one. So even if you get some odd looks by tapping your toes in time to music while on a plane or doing calf raises in your office, you’ll at least be getting your blood flowing. You might also consider getting a mat that has different surface angles or a fidget bar to add in even more micro-movement. If you work from home, try rolling a soft ball under your feet several times a day.
Embrace the Office Mini-Workout
Another way to buffer being stationary is to build in movement breaks throughout your day. Having good intentions on this front is a good start, but we can easily get caught up in our endless to-do list and get stuck sitting or standing in one place. If this is a pitfall for you, start using an app like Stand Up!, StretchClock or the aptly named Move, to remind yourself to get up and move around. If you can get away with it without being ostracized by your colleagues like Ron Burgundy (“Mr. Burgundy, stop calling your arms ‘Guns!’”), try doing two or three sets of bodyweight exercises like lunges, air squats and pushups during each movement break. Or if you work in a multi-floor building maybe run up and down a few flights of stairs. Work from home? Then go check your mailbox, take your dog for a walk or run to the coffee shop instead of driving. Even such small actions can add up to a big boost in overall wellness.
