If you’ve got a regular training routine that you stick to consistently, then you’re already doing better than most people. But outside of your runs, rides, or gym sessions, what does the rest of your day look like? Between meetings, managing your inbox, and doing the rest of your job, it’s easy to end up stuck sitting for hours. Then when you get home feeling tired, the couch and TV call. If you fit in more motion throughout the day, you’ll avoid undoing the benefits of your workouts and improve your overall health.
Adjust Your Work Position
Sitting at a desk – whether you work in an office, at home, or in a coffee shop – for too long can cause myriad problems. These include low back, hip, and knee pain, blood clots, and decreased mobility. An article by the Mayo Clinic asserted that excessive sitting also increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and certain kinds of cancer. The author cited a study in the journal Circulation that stated, “no amount of physical activity is enough to combat the dangerous health effects of sitting for hours each day.”
In an interview with Sanford Health, cardiologist Dr. Naveen Rajpurohit stated that too much sitting increases the incidence of dementia and chronic anxiety. “It’s not just the body, it’s the mind that’s being affected too by simple things like sitting too long and a sedentary lifestyle, so awareness is very important,” he said.
In summary, you need to stand and move more and sit less. Getting an adjustable desk is a great first step (pun intended), but as you get caught up in the busyness or – if you’re lucky – find yourself in a flow state, you might forget to stop sitting. This is where a device like Tempo from Ergodriven comes in handy. It automatically raises and lowers your adjustable desk to help you avoid the perils of sitting all day.
Tempo detects your position and moves your work surface between sitting and standing height automatically. You can also set it to adjust periodically throughout the day. As a result, you’ll spend more time standing, which increases blood flow, burns more calories, and boosts your basal metabolic rate.
According to studies cited by Forbes, standing more can also improve creativity, focus, and cognitive output. A paper published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders found that when sedentary adults broke up periods of prolonged sitting, they improved executive function, attention, visuospatial skills, and memory, all of which can elevate work productivity. They speculated that standing and moving prompts the release of neurotransmitters in the brain like BDNF and DOPA.
Always Choose Walking
When journalist and author Dan Buettner investigated the habits of the people who not just live the longest but also have the greatest levels of vitality into old age, he found several commonalities across countries and continents. One was that residents of Okinawa, Sardinia, and the other Blue Zones he studied walked up to six miles per day. Sure, community, faith, eating clean, and other factors had a bearing on lifelong health, but the practice of taking several daily strolls can’t be underestimated.
Many of the people Buettner observed live in rural areas. They habitually walk into town to pick up provisions at local stores, meet friends at pubs and coffee shops, and pick up the paper each morning. Even if you live in a city, the key takeaway here still applies: work walking into your daily routine and default to it anytime the distance is walkable.
While clever Japanese marketers sold pedometers by urging people to walk 10,000 steps a day and this target remains baked into more modern apps and smartwatches, it’s actually an arbitrary goal. However, there might be a more reliable target according to recent research. A Vanderbilt University Medical Center study used National Institutes of Health data that tracked the lifestyle habits of more than 6,000 American adults over four years. They concluded that those who walked 8,200 steps a day maintained a healthy weight and were less likely to suffer from hypertension, diabetes, depression, and sleep apnea.
If you’re not into counting steps or don’t use a wearable, don’t worry. Simply try to substitute quick car rides with walking instead and aim to walk at every opportunity. This could include taking the stairs up and down your office building, going to grab a few groceries at your local store, and hoofing it for your morning and afternoon caffeine fix.
Another easy win is to stop sitting during phone meetings and walk instead. Many of us spend several hours a day on conference calls, so you could easily add thousands more steps by simply moving during meetings instead of remaining stationary and seated at your desk.
Fit in More Micromovement and Sneaky Sets
Another underrated way to improve physical and cognitive wellbeing is to make time for brief movement breaks throughout your workday. For example, you could put a pull-up bar on the door of your home office. Every time you pass under it you could bang out a few reps. In a recent newsletter, self-defense instructor Tony Blauer – who works with civilians, first responders, and tactical units – suggested doing 10 push-ups every hour for 10 hours. If you did this, you’d total 100 push-ups per day. Or double the number of movement breaks by doing five reps every 30 minutes.
You don’t need to limit this practice to pull-ups and push-ups. Brett Jones, director of education at StrongFirst, keeps a couple of kettlebells in the corner of his office. The foundation of his Iron Cardio program is combining a single rep of a kettlebell clean, push press, and squat in one set. He does this with his left arm and then his right. While you could do a lot of these sets as a single workout, they’re also perfect for bite-sized movement breaks at multiple intervals in the morning and afternoon. Or create your own bodyweight circuits to add more variety.
To amplify the benefits of your regular movement breaks, also try to fidget more. Researchers from the University of Missouri at Columbia discovered that when overweight people fidgeted for just a few minutes, they improved blood sugar regulation. They also stated that “fidgeting augments metabolic demand and increases blood flow to the moving limbs.” So if you do find yourself stuck sitting – whether during a boring meeting or when traveling – try fidgeting. And consider adding a standing desk mat that features multiple different shapes that you can explore with your feet as you switch between sitting and standing.