Sitting in front of your work desk the whole day is not giving doing your health wonders. You may be doing wonders for your productivity by sitting in front of your computer and working but this happens at the expense of your health and well being. You’ll likely gain weight, fail to burn off excess calories and make your muscles shrink and get so out of shape that you’ll have a hard time performing physical activities.
Exercise is important to keep yourself healthy but if you’re a desk jockey here are some tips that will at least keep you healthier than you are right now.
Hydrate
You need to keep your body hydrated all throughout the day. Working in front of your desk the whole ay usually means forgetting to drink because you’re so busy. What you can do is to bring a water bottle with you and place it on your desk. This will allow you to keep tabs on the amount of water you drink. A one liter bottle will be a good gauge in determining how much water you drink the whole day. Drinking two liters is more than sufficient to address your daily hydration needs.
Move around
You don’t really need to be always tied to your desk. There are many opportunities for you to move around during the day. Based on studies made at the Mayo Clinic, our body can only sit in one position for 20 minutes before it becomes necessary to move. Since you definitely sit far longer than 20 minutes, moving around will make sure that you won’t develop muscle aches or back problems. What you can do is to stand and just do some stretching exercises. You can also walk around to bring circulation to your extremities.
Sit properly
A lot of the problems we get through working all day seated is bad posture. Improper posture leads to a lot of injuries down the road so you have to be conscious about how you sit and maintaining proper posture. Be sure that your chair is at the correct height – your eyes should be level with the monitor and your knees are slightly lower than your hips. The computer should also be directly facing you at a distance of about 20 inches. Allow your wrist to rest on the desk and your feet should be firmly planted on the floor.
Work standing up
One of the more radical things you can do to keep yourself healthy even when working a desk job is to work standing up. There are studies that say working while standing will improve blood pressure and lower blood sugar levels.
There are now work stations where the computer is operated from a standing position. These standing desks are perfect for those who want to work on a computer while standing up. Beware though that prolonged standing can also contribute to other health problems so enjoy the best of both worlds – use a standing desk but keep a bar stool within easy reach so you can sit if you’re already feeling sore.