Your Health and the Office - Don't Neglect Yourself!

There has been a rash of articles written over the past few weeks (and years) on how deadly your office chair is. It's not necessarily that your chair will eat you whole or impale you on its armrest (though depending on the manufacturer, that is not necessarily totally out of the realm of possibility...I think my boyfriend's chair has it out for me, personally), it's the negative affects sitting for hours at a time has on our bodies and health.

"I'm healthy", you mutter to yourself, "I hit the gym and avoid cake Wednesday and participate in that softball league..." - but have you really thought about what 8 hours or more a day does to us?





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Created by Medical Billing and Coding

 Featured on Mashable.com and created by Medical Billing and Coding, this overview of how our body breaks down is a good visualization of what exactly is occurring while we're typing away at our desks. We're getting fat (even if we exercise), we're hurting our bodies (even if we avoid heavily salted or sugar based products), and the only way to avoid this is by sitting less.

Even Business Week wrote an article on how your chair is killing you (with less visualization, but the point is still there) in their 2010 edition. It all comes down to the human body not being built to sustain 8-9 hours of stagnant, bad posture. So what can we do?

The first (and probably more difficult solution if you're in an office) is to look into a stand up desk (preferably one that is easy to raise and lower with little hassle). Men's Health wrote a recent article on the dangers of sitting for long periods of time and offered the standing desk solution. Being a showroom has it's advantages because you get to see all the products: I recommend Steelcase's Air Touch or Series 7. Bonus if you can convince HR your office needs a walk station!

The second option and one which is a little bit easier to implement is to start finding ways to get up and around the office. Fitness magazine offers some quick tips to getting your move on in the office. From setting up a reminder in your outlook calendar to doing a 10 minute workout in your cube, there are simple ways you can get your heart rate going while hanging around at work.

Whether you convince your boss that investing in a stand up desk will ultimately add years to your life and overall happiness or settle for doing the 5 flights of stairs at lunch, remember that sitting stagnant for hours at a time is detrimental to your health (even if you workout everyday). By changing up your routine a little bit, your body will thank you for your efforts.

~ Kendal