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Simple activities to be active at your desk – Part 3

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Desk-based workers can spend a lot of time at their desk sitting. If you are a regular follow of this blog, you will know that high levels of sitting time can have several detrimental impacts on health and wellbeing, including on cognitive function, risk of diabetes, physical function and quality of life. Prolonged sitting – that is, sitting for a long time without taking a break – is emerging as particularly harmful, which is why we promote regular breaks from sitting at BeUpstanding. Indeed, a 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis by Loh and colleagues highlighted the beneficial effects of having regular physical activity breaks on blood sugar, insulin, and triacylglycerol measures. Their article concluded that taking short breaks from prolonged sitting results in better glycemic control and improved metabolic control compared to individuals who do not incorporate short physical activity breaks. One impact of too much sitting for too long is on our musculoskeletal health. Here, prolonged sitting can cause tight hip flexors and leg muscles. Vanroelen (2022) states that these imbalances are due to the shortened and lengthened muscles in your legs due to muscle weakness and tightness. These imbalances can lead to a compensatory hyperlordosis or excessive inward…

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How do BeUpstanding teams choose their top 3 strategies to stand up, sit less and move more?

BeUpstanding Stories

One of the key components of the BeUpstanding program is to hold a staff consultation workshop with all team members. The aim of the workshop is to provide information about the program to staff, give them the opportunity to discuss potential ways in which they can stand up, sit less, and move more at work, and the collectively select three top strategies to implement as a team during the 8-week program and beyond. Ideally the workshop is held in-person, however, we know that COVID and other factors have affected how and where people work.  As a result, an in-person staff workshop was not always possible for the teams taking part in our national trial of BeUpstanding and teams conducted this consultation and gained staff input in various ways. As part of our research, we are interested in finding out how staff were engaged in decision making around potential BeUpstanding strategies. This data was obtained via the program completion survey that workplace BeUpstanding champions completed upon finishing the 8-week implementation phase of the program. In the survey, champions were asked how they gained input from staff on how they wanted to BeUpstanding (in addition to or instead of the staff workshop),…

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Simple activities to be active at your desk – Part 2

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Guidelines recommend regular breaks from prolonged sitting, and at team BeUpstanding, we encourage breaks at least every 30 minutes. Here are some activities that you can do at your desk to help combat some of the impacts of prolonged sitting. Individuals who sit for a prolonged amount of time tend to have rounded shoulders, tight neck muscles, and have back pain and this is known as upper-crossed syndrome. Balciuniene et al. discuss that there is an imbalance with your upper body muscles like your upper trapezius, levator scapula, and pectoralis major and minor, since these dorsal and ventral muscles cross, which create a pattern of joint dysfunction leading to spinal stress and poor posture. These features of having a forward head posture and thoracic kyphosis, excessive upper back curvature, to name a few, leads to poor shoulder stability and mobility, especially at the glenohumoral joint in your shoulder. This causes an overactivation of some muscles like your levator scapulae and upper trapezius to try to maintain body alignment. Kim et al. (2016) determined that postural pain syndrome can be a result from upper-crossed syndrome and poor posture due to prolonged sitting. Lee et al. (2017) discussed that incorporating exercises using…

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Simple activities to be active at your desk – Part 1

Bite size facts

Guidelines recommend regular breaks from prolonged sitting, and at team BeUpstanding, we encourage breaks at least every 30 minutes. Here are three activities that you can do at your desk to help combat some of the impacts of prolonged sitting. Wall Sit with Calf Raise We all sit hunched over in our chairs whenever we work on a project or browse on our computer. Sometimes people tend to hunch over when eating food at a table. If you have ever seen anyone walking around with a curved lower back, or excessive lumbar lordosis, their posture may have been severely impacted from sitting hunched over at a desk all day. Wall sits help improve your posture and improve your lower body muscle endurance, while strengthening your muscles. Here are the steps to executing a wall sit with a calf raise. Place your back against the wall Squat down until your legs are at 90 degrees Raise up your toes and lower your heels back down to perform one repetition Add a weight on your legs for an extra challenge Performing this exercise allows the body to engage the abdominal muscles as you brace your core in order to keep your back…

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BeUpstanding Champion Perspectives: What Makes a Good Champion

BeUpstanding Stories

In a previous blog article titled ‘What makes a good champion’ we wrote about some of the qualities that make an effective workplace champion. Previous research suggests that those who have a genuine passion for health and wellbeing and are enthusiastic about the opportunity to inspire others towards a healthier lifestyle (Healy et al., 2018) are the most effective champions. They must also be committed to making long-term positive health changes in their workplace and display a good relationship with their peers. More general personality traits like outgoingness and motivation have been positively linked to champion performance (Howell, 2005). Highly motivated individuals are also more likely to engage with the content and be prepared to persist when faced with challenges. As part of the survey champions complete after finishing the 8-week BeUpstanding Program, they are asked what qualities or characteristics they believe make an effective champion in the BeUpstanding program, as well as what characteristics and qualities they possess that they feel helped them be a champion for their team. Common attributes identified by champions that they believe make a good BeUpstanding champion, based on their experiences, included motivated, approachable, committed, and positive. These qualities and others can be seen…

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COVID-19 saw us sitting for longer and diabetes rates increasing

Latest evidence

COVID saw us sitting longer – and diabetes rose globally by 16% in 2 years. Time to get moving Christian Brakenridge, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and David Dunstan, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute New figures show global diabetes prevalence has increased by 16% in the past two years, with 537 million adults (aged 20-79) now estimated to be living with the chronic condition. Over this same time period, COVID has stopped us doing some of the things that help prevent and manage diabetes. One particularly concerning example is an increase to sedentary behaviour (sitting down for long periods of time), which was already at dangerous levels pre-COVID. Some estimates indicate the pandemic added an average three hours to our sitting time each day. Now lockdowns have eased in many places, it is vital we get moving again – and in the right way – to change this picture. Reducing sitting time is a good starting place to help people with diabetes, pre-diabetes and other chronic conditions to reach healthier levels of physical activity. A growing global problem Data from the International Diabetes Federation’s 10th Diabetes Atlas, officially launched today, shows about 10% of the world’s population aged 20–79 now live…

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Investment and usage of sit-stand workstations

Latest evidence

One strategy that has been shown to result in substantial reductions in workplace sedentary time, particularly when accompanied by behaviour change programs like BeUpstanding, has been the use of sit-stand workstations. These workstations allow a user to shift between a sitting and standing posture while working on their computer. The popularity of sit-stand workstations in Australia has exploded, with a report showing a 400% increase in sales of sit-stand workstations since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, with over 90% delivered to home addresses. This phenomenon isn’t just restricted to Australia with a global market research report showing that sales of sit-stand workstations are expected to reach $2.8 billion by 2025. To date, the majority of research on sit-stand workstations has been from the perspective of the user, i.e., the individual employee. However, it is also important to understand their use and implementation from the perspective of the decision maker responsible for their purchase. One of our outstanding BeUpstanding PhD candidates, Haroun Zerguine, has conducted research to address this evidence gap. His findings, which have been published in Applied Ergonomics (here and here), are summarised below. What was done The study included an online survey as well as interviews with…

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Mix it up for musculoskeletal health: a webinar

BeUpstanding Stories

One of BeUpstanding’s lead investigators, Associate Professor Genevieve Healy, presented at the recent national Musculoskeletal Disorders Symposium in June. The event was held virtually and hosted by Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, on behalf of the Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities in Australia, and featured international and national experts, industry case studies, and online exhibitors with the theme of MSD prevention by design. Genevieve’s presentation titled “Addressing sedentary behaviour: occupational sitting, an emerging workplace health and safety issue” focused on why excessive sedentary time has now been acknowledged as an emergent health and safety issue and potential solutions for supporting workers to sit less and move more. Genevieve also presented some early findings from the BeUpstanding national implementation trial we have currently underway, that are showing reductions in self-reported musculoskeletal discomfort scores in three areas (Lower back; Upper back, neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, or hands; and hips, thighs, buttocks, knees, ankles, or feet), with nearly a 15% relative reduction overall. Promising early results! You can now view the presentation as well as some of the other presentations via this link. Happy watching!

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New report examines occupational sitting and mental health in young people

Key resources

A new report, funded by Wellcome, explores the potential health risks associated with high levels of occupational sitting and methods to reduce excessive sitting in the workplace or home working environment. Below is a summary of the report, taken from here. A full summary of the report can be found here, while a summary presentation of our key findings can be found here, and a podcast can be found here. BeUpstanding investigators David Dunstan and Genevieve Healy were co-authors on the report, which was led by Aaron Kandola. Full author list: Aaron Kandola, Jessica Rees, Brendon Stubbs, David W Dunstan, Genevieve N Healy, Joseph F Hayes Background Due to the rising prevalence of desk-based work, excessive sitting represents an emerging occupational health and safety issue. Employed adults are typically sitting for over 9 hours per day. Spending large periods of the day seated with insufficient active breaks increases the risk of several physical and mental health conditions, including depression and anxiety disorders. Allowing or facilitating excessive sitting in the workplace can affect employees’ mental health and compromise the duty of care between an employer and employee. Combatting excessive occupational sitting with regular breaks involving light activity for a couple of…

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Why are workplaces wanting to BeUpstanding? Part 2: Knowledge and the Environment

BeUpstanding Stories

As part of the sign-up process to the BeUpstanding program, we ask workplace champions what they aim to achieve with the program. We have had our clever UQ psychology students analysing the responses and sorting the findings into main themes. In a previous blog article we reported on two of the most common themes, which were around improving health and wellbeing and supporting workers to sit less and move more. In this blog, Gilbert Leung examines findings around the themes of knowledge and environment. A quick recap on methods We received and analysed over three hundred responses regarding what teams hoped to achieve by taking part in BeUpstanding. Our team independently identified key response topics and grouped them into wider themes. We then came up with the final list of six themes: knowledge, behaviour, culture, health, work, and environmental change. We then coded all the responses into their corresponding themes. Some of the responses only applied to one of the themes, while some could be applied to several. We founds six key themes: This article focuses on responses around the themes of knowledge and environment. Responses themed around knowledge Do you remember how long you sat during work yesterday? Do…

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