Tips To Stay Healthy While Sitting At A Desk All Day

Tips To Stay Healthy While Sitting At A Desk All Day

A great many of us in the world sit at a desk all day for a myriad of reasons. Maybe you are a app designer who works at a computer all day. Or you are an accountant who is crunching numbers at a computer all day. You might be a freelance writer who is creating content, which happens while sitting at a computer all day long.

This amount of sitting is not good for our health. Studies have linked diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and hypertension to long periods of sitting. This type of lifestyle can also lead to back and neck pain. Yet, our world is geared toward sitting whether it’s when we are working, watching television, eating meals, or visiting with friends. Let’s face it, there are very few activities that aren’t exercise related that required the participants to stand.

There are a ton of things you can do to everyday if you are a person that is stuck sitting at your desk for 8 hours or more.

Get Up And Walk

You can take breaks after sitting for a certain period of time, say 2-3 hours. Even if you just take a lap around the office or, if you are a work from home person take a walk around the block. This will get your blood moving and relieve you of this sedentary prison.

An added bonus is, whatever you might be working on will have fresh eyes to check it out when you come back. Just as artists are taught to step away from their piece for a bit to gain a new perspective, this ideology can aid any project.

Get A Good Night’s Sleep

If you aren’t sleeping well then sitting in a chair all day is going to be extremely difficult. What will be even more difficult will be your ability to pay attention and/or stay awake to work on your project. If you aren’t getting the sleep you need you should investigate why.

Are you suffering from sleep apnea or insomnia? There are ways to help you with these ailments. Getting medical advice wouldn’t be a bad place to start. Your mattress could be ready for replacement. If this is the case there are mattresses for neck pain available on the market that could be beneficial to a person who sits at a desk all day.

Stand Part Of The Time

Tons of professionals have taken to standing desks as of late. They find that not only do they experience less problems with their backs and necks, they are healthier for it. A research study at the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic showed that when offered a combination sit-stand workstation the employees were happy to spend 25% of the time they once spent sitting standing.

If you don’t want to commit to standing the entire time you are working at your computer then maybe you should consider a sit-stand station. They also found that workers who stood while working had a greater sense of well being, less grogginess, and smaller appetite.

Get Your Exercise

It stands to reason that, if the majority of your day is going to be spent sitting in a chair not moving or burning calories, you should spend some of your spare time getting in shape. If you like to be outdoors try jogging three days a week. Or you can finally use that gym membership that you’ve been paying for.

Whatever your preferences for exercises are, you should make it a point to get out there and do it. When you are in shape sitting at your desk might not have as negative an effect as if you were out of shape.

Drink A Lot Of Water

When you are at the office make sure to get eight 8 ounce glasses a day. Not only will this keep you getting up to refill your cup at the office water dispenser, you will also have to use the bathroom much more, which will get you up moving too. It will also keep your stomach full so you won’t feel the need to snack throughout the day, which just adds weight.

Stretch Daily

After sitting for long periods of time our muscles can get stiff. A great way to remedy this is to do some light stretches after you stand up. If you are in an office space that you share with tons of people and don’t feel comfortable getting down and stretching you can just hit the bathroom or a private area.

Another way to get stretching in would be to take up yoga. This is a great way to center and make your muscles limber. If you are practicing yoga regularly then you are definitely meeting your stretching needs. Even something small like a hamstring stretch after you stand up from your chair can help you incredibly.

Conclusion

It is difficult to get away from the desk sometimes, especially when our livelihood depends on it. This is why it is up to us to make time to walk around and get up, otherwise our health could seriously suffer. Try a few of these techniques to see if they help you.

I'm the editorial writer for DroidHorizon. You'll find my content varies in the technology, science, & lifestyle categories.

1 Comment

  1. I like this. Great.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

*

Time limit is exhausted. Please reload CAPTCHA.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.