Are you often feeling stressed during your work days? Do you never really find the time to do sports and train your body? You are not alone, but there are many easy things to be more active and healthy at work.

Walk-Meetings

Meetings don’t have to be held in a dark and boring meeting room. Get your meeting partner(s) up and go out to take a walk. I usually take paper and pen with me (yes, they still exist! :P) to take notes. When all participants agree, you could also audio record the meeting and transcribe it later, if needed. I’ve found these meetings are often much more relaxed and, thus, more productive and creative! This certainly doesn’t work for all kinds of meetings, such as big group meetings or ones, where you have to write down many things.

‘Just’ walk more

One of the best things to kick-start a day is to go for a jog or walk early in the morning. This is of course not for everyone. But there are many other chances to be and stay active throughout the day: take the stairs instead of the elevator, go to the cafeteria which is a bit farther away during your coffee/lunch break, use your cycle to commute between work and home or park your car farther away, to get some steps.

I am currently using a Garmin Fenix 3 to track my activity (jogs, hikes, ski days). A nice side effect is that the watch reminds me every now and then (~2hrs) to get up and walk a bit. And if I do, it helps me to relax for a few minutes and go back to work refreshed. That’s way better than coffee!

Researchers have found out by interviewing long-term users of activity trackers, such as the FitBit, Garmin bands, etc., that they often succeed at motivating users to change their behavior to a more active lifestyle. However, they often do not support users to a more durable behavior change that lasts over several years… There is definitely still a lot of potential – but in the end it’s simple: if you really want to be more active, ‘just’ be!

Tina Ornezeder from the Adidas sports blog, also pointed out that it may help to find some colleagues at work that want to be more active with you – to motivate each other to change and retain your new behavior! Be #strongertogether 🙂

Walking is also not for everyone – but you can do it everywhere and it’s basically free… And it helps your work-life-balance!

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Categories: Productivity