Working from home has become the new norm. We find ourselves sitting down for longer periods of time and not moving as much as we did pre-lockdown, which is impacting how people exercise from home.
For some people, finding the time to exercise can be difficult and without enough motivation or planning, they simply leave it out of their routine.
This is bad!
Exercising offers many benefits that are good for our overall health and work productivity. To highlight that fact, we’ve created a list of some of the big reasons you should prioritise getting some exercise in your day.
When working from home, people are sitting down for long hours attending to their video meetings and phone calls. This may lead to poor posture and back pain, resulting in muscle spasms and strains.
Exercising helps to increase muscle strength and endurance to help sustain proper posture. Incorporating stretches also works well as it helps to relax muscles to relieve stiffness and soreness.
Being stuck at your desk working all day can turn your brain into mush, no new ideas spring up, leaving you frustrated.
The good thing is that exercise helps with work productivity as exercise increases blood flow to the brain, keeping you more focussed and more creative.
Working from home can affect your mental health as for some people, they are by themselves and the four walls.
Exercise helps with stress and mood, to make a person feel more relaxed. Exercise releases endorphins (happy hormones) to improve mood, reduce pain and make you feel happy.
Exercise also helps to reduce the risk of depression which can result from social isolation and loneliness when working from home.
Sitting down for long periods of time can lead to weight gain and in severe cases obesity. Exercising stimulates your metabolism to help you burn calories to help reduce weight gain as well as temporarily suppress post-exercise appetite to decrease calorie intake. Thus, help with body weight control.
Exercise also helps the body to better manage blood sugar and insulin levels by lowering blood sugar levels and making insulin work better. Scheduling exercise into your routine can reduce the risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes.
Exercise minimises the risk of developing heart diseases such as hypertension and high cholesterol. Exercising promotes better blood circulation around the body.
Working from home makes people more sluggish and tired as we are sitting more and not doing our usual commute to and from work. This tiredness may manifest into lack of concentration and motivation.
Exercise helps with managing the body’s energy and increases energy reserves. For example, exercises such as tai chi or yoga helps to relieve stress and anxiety which gives a sense of peace to help restore the body’s energy and bring the body to an energised state.
In relation to energy levels, exercise helps to improve sleep quality and make you fall asleep quicker to get a better night’s sleep.
Now, we have seen the benefits of exercising when working from home, here are some strategies to incorporate exercise into your routine:
If you enjoyed this article and want to kick start your home exercise habits, you might enjoy our recent article guiding you through a Daily Home Stretching Routine.
This post was written by Precision Athletica exercise physiologist Jason Oei, is you would like to know more or seek specific guidance from Jason, you can contact him by email here.
We’re taking the health of our clients, members and staff very seriously and our preference would be for you to call to book an appointment so that we can make sure to explain our approach to keeping you safe. You can call our bookings team to schedule a session:
Evolving with the current environment, we are also now offering online appointments, meaning that we can support anyone who is unable to leave their home. Sessions are done via our state of the art Telehealth system and as long as you have a laptop or tablet with an inbuilt camera, or a phone with camera, we can help! Online consultations would be especially effective for guiding you in how to use your foam roller.
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