Work in an Office

3 Ways to Get More Active When You Work in an Office

There is a new disease cropping up in people that are desk-bound for much of their work day – the sitting disease. However, its effects can be minimized (or entirely prevented) by getting more physical activity throughout the day. This article explores three ways to keep active:

Before Getting to Your Desk

If you drive to work, park at the far end of the parking lot and then walk in the rest of the way to your office building. If you take public transportation to work, get off a stop or two before or after your closest stop and walk to your place of work. Once inside, take the stairs instead of the elevator up to your office (or at least walk a few flights up if working in a high-rise building).

While at Your Desk

Aim to get up for at least five minutes out of each hour. Another “trick” is to take phone calls standing up. If on a cordless phone or have a speaker on your phone, get up and walk around while talking.

Another way to get in more steps is instead of sending an email to a colleague in the same building, walk over to his/ her desk and deliver the message in person.

More and more office professionals are either using stand-up desks or desks with an integrated treadmill. It is a great way to exercise while you work if you can get the boss to buy you either one. It is a great way to burn 400 calories or more per day.

While it can be beneficial to get up and go to the cafeteria at lunchtime, health-wise it is better to go outside and walk during your lunch break and leave just enough time to eat your healthy brown-bag lunch you brought from home. In addition to the extra steps you got while walking, you got even more by having to walk down to the ground floor and back up again after lunch (and you ate healthy in the process)!

On The Way Home

This is generally a reverse of getting to work. After the workday, walk back down to the ground floor and back out to your car or to the transportation stop.

Many office workers like to stop at their gym either on the way to or from work and get in a structured workout too. It makes a great way to get in some upper body exercising each day as most of the “office exercising” involves the lower body.

You don’t have to be a “victim” of the sitting disease. With some forethought, you can get your work done and get in some exercising all during the course of a workday.