Why Is Exercise So Important When Working From Home

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!

Exercise From Home

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.

5 Reasons Why Is Exercise So Important When Working From Home

1. Remedy For Pain

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.

2. Exercise Helps With Work Productivity

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.

3. Improve Mental Health

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.

4. Improves Overall Health

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.

5. Fight Fatigue and Increase Energy Levels

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.

So, What Should You Be Doing….

Now, we have seen the benefits of exercising when working from home, here are some strategies to incorporate exercise into your routine:

  • Start small
  • Take a couples of minute each hour to stretch out the body
  • Take regular breaks and move around
  • Look for times where you can get up and move, for example, do a walking phone meeting
  • Pick activities that you enjoy
  • Incorporate mini exercises with other tasks, for example, doing some bench push-ups while waiting for the kettle to boil

Want More

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.

How Do I Book An Appointment with Precision Physio for Help?

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 any of these numbers to schedule a session:

Online Consultations

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.

To learn more about online consultations, please call us on any of the numbers listed above.

Jon Perkins

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