Physical health at the office
How can we break sedentary behaviour at work?
Many of us working at an office spend most of the day sitting. A sedentary lifestyle is associated with a number of diseases, muscle tension and pain, and even premature death. Physical exercise, on the other hand, can help reduce stress levels and increase the function of the brain.
How can we create a work environment that encourages movement, and increase productivity and creativity?
Openlab will try our favourite ideas out at our co-working space. Feel free to try it out too!
Physical health at the office
How can we break sedentary behaviour at work?
Many of us working at an office spend most of the day sitting. A sedentary lifestyle is associated with a number of diseases, muscle tension and pain, and even premature death. Physical exercise, on the other hand, can help reduce stress levels and increase the function of the brain.
How can we create a work environment that encourages movement, and increase productivity and creativity?
Openlab will try our favourite ideas out at our co-working space. Feel free to try it out too!
Background:
On average an adult spend 7-8 hours sitting down each day. Our bodies are not made for spending so much time sitting and staying still. A sedentary lifestyle is associated with a number of negative health effects and diseases, and is even said to be one of the leading causes of preventable death world wide. How we sit also affect our health, as many suffer from pain in the back, neck and shoulders due to their posture when spending much time at the computer.
Sedentary behaviur is not to be confused with a lack of exercise. Long periods of sitting still is negative for the health regardless of regular hard exercise.
In other words, we need to sit less and move more in our daily lives. However, working at an office usually means sitting in front of a desk for hours on end. With height adjustable desks get some of us up on our feet for a while. But it is so easy to start leaning on the desk, or get tired and sit back down.
Challenge:
We are convinced that there are tons of creative and innovative ways to reduce the time we spend in our office chairs, or how we sit.
How can we make it convenient, efficient and fun to break the sedentary behaviours at work? How can we become aware of our habits and incorporate new healthier ones? How can we benefit from the stress reducing endorphins and increased brain capacity that more intense exercise brings, while working?
Share your ideas! We welcome anything from simple advice to advance technical solutions.
What happens with the ideas?
We are excited to try some of the ideas out at our co-working space. We hope many of your also find inspiration to bring to your workplaces.
If you test any of the ideas, please let us know! Send an email to info@developyourcity.se.
Ida N
Walking meetings
Get some exercise, fresh air, daylight and new impressions by taking a walking meeting rather than in a meeting room. Bring a pen and paper and take notes, or record your main insights or ideas on your phone.
Can a new path help you to also think in new ways? How does the setting influence your discussion and brainstorming?
Maybe walk in pairs/small groups and prepare some stations where you all meet up to collect your insights, and continue to the next station discussing a different topic.
Feel free to build on this idea to come up with innovative ways to make walking meetings even better.
arvid
Collecting points
Idea: Collect points individually and at your own pace for various sports or training-related activities and compete with colleagues!
General rules:
-Participation should always be optional.
-Decide within the team which activities qualify for competition and which don't. Consider using a broad scale, from working standing up for 1h to marathon. Decide how many points performing 1 activity at 1 hour is worth.
-Select one referee to whom all participants report their activities.
-Always trust a colleague's report.
-When any participant reaches 100 points, a discount at your local café is granted by the employer.
Johan Lindal
Nudging chair
A chair with sensors and small motors that can nudge you towards better when you work at the desk. Some features it could have:
- It can remind you to improve your posture by slightly lower or lower back, depending on where the back sensors feel you put the most pressure, or if you are too long to one side.
- It could be connected to your computer so that a small message window or maybe image pops up to give some advice and reminders when it buzzes.
- There could be a massage function in the back of the chair to release tension
- The computer reminders and buzzers could also show you some simple exercises at the desk, like twisting and bending your back and neck, rolling your shoulders etc.
- The seat could be slightly loose, or maybe have tiny movements so you could have to activate your core muscles, preferably without taking away focus from your work
- The seat could be automatically tilted forward a few times during the day, and the desk raised, to encourage you to stand at the desk. There could be "warning" in advance that you can accept or postpone for some minutes.
What features would you like to add to this super chair?
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