BeUpstanding™ Blog

April 2020

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Showing all posts made in the month of April 2020.

Virtual Workouts You Can Do From Home

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With social distancing regulations in place and gyms forced to close you are likely finding yourself adjusting to life indoors. But just because you may not be able to do your usual forms of exercise, it doesn’t mean you should stop altogether. Exercise not only has multiple benefits to your physical health but it is also a great stress- reliever. Continuing to maintain some sort of a routine is so important in times likes these where we can feel more stress than usual. We’ve put together a selection of online exercise platforms with on demand fitness content who provide free access to workouts you can do at home that cover a whole range of exercise styles.  You can access the content via a smartphone app, YouTube or live streams on social media and you don’t necessarily need any equipment. All you need to do is find a space and get started. The best thing is no one is watching! Just as you schedule your diary to organise your workload and meetings, you should find time to exercise. Treat exercise with the same priority as a phone call with a client. Blocking out time away from your desk means that you…

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It is a marathon – not a sprint: perspectives from quarantine

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This personal post is written by guest blogger Meg Grealy – who speaks of her experience of returning from overseas and into quarantine.   Had you asked me in January, or even the beginning of March, what my April days were looking like they would sound achievable, nothing too extreme, just the routine of a twenty-something who had just moved to the UK on a working visa.  I would have said a morning run (so I could make it across the finish line of the 10k I’d signed up to run on May 3rd) a 3-day work week, and an exploratory beer in various pubs across my new city. In hindsight, the only thing I managed to get right is the daily run (although it’s purpose is now to harness endorphins for the day). And yet the daily run is maybe the only thing that has kept me sane and allowed me to stay present in a period where everything is confusing. It seems the only effective strategy of taking control is to muddle through conflicting emotions and anxiety-inducing news cycles. As we started this year during a bushfire crisis, I feel as if there has been a delay in…

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Health impacts of sedentary behaviour interventions: new evidence

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One of the questions that we are frequently asked is about the health impacts of supporting adults to stand up, sit less and move more. Our team has just published a systematic review and meta-analysis examining this question in relation to indicators of heart and metabolic health in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. The group of lead authors have written a blog article for the Sedentary Behaviour Research Network, which we have reprinted below. Sedentary behaviour interventions in real-world conditions: what are the health benefits? In recent years, interventions to reduce sedentary behaviour in various settings, including the workplace, have become quite prevalent, in recognition of the potential risks of sedentary behaviour to cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Systematic reviews evaluating their success have concluded that they do reduce sedentary behaviour, to varying degrees, but so far have yet to determine the extent to which these ‘real-world’ interventions provide the health parameters such as have been reported for acute laboratory interventions. Accordingly, we conducted an extensive systematic review with meta-analyses of interventions targeting sedentary behaviour in free-living conditions for ≥7 days, alone or combined with physical activity. We specifically focused on their effectiveness for adults on biomarkers of cardiometabolic risk, particularly those related to body anthropometry, blood…

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3 Tips from a Health Coach to Staying Active and Healthy when Working From Home

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One of the biggest problems from working at home can be inactivity. There’s no walking to get a cup of coffee, visiting a nearby colleague, taking the stairs to the bathroom or those incidental types of activity that come from being in a workplace with people and areas spread out. Everything is within easy reach at home. Couple that with a busy workload and this can mean sitting for as long as possible until the task is done. Suddenly hours have gone by and we’re still sitting hunched over the desk. Remaining in one posture for hours at a time can affect the muscles in your back, neck, hip flexors, hamstrings and calves. Excessive sitting can affect your metabolism, increase blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Staying active when working from home may seem easy. Without the daily commute and perhaps having more flexibility in your working hours, surely being at home affords you more time to spend on exercise? Whilst this may be true in theory, we may quickly fall into routines that do not prioritise healthy activity and the boundaries between work and personal life become blurred. The best…

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