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How does the workplace environment impact on movement?

Latest evidence

Just take a minute to picture the environment of your workplace. What is the layout like? Are you required to get off your seat and walk to the printer located in a shared space, or do you scoot your seat to the end of the desk to retrieve that document? Are your colleagues or the partition in your line of vision? Is your workplace your home? The environment has a key influence on behaviour – including our sedentary and physical activity behaviour. The role of the workplace environment on movement behaviour was examined in a recent study by Holmes and colleagues. Here, the associations between workplace characteristics and movement patterns were examined in a group of 271 desk-based workers in the USA. The participants were part of a broader study that was conducted between December 2017 and August 2022, so the findings cross-over the COVID-19 period. They examined both physical workplace characteristics, such as the placement of office equipment, stairs, elevators, and access to common areas, as well as social characteristics, such as face-to-face interactions and workplace socialising. The workplace characteristics were measured by questionnaire, while the movement patterns were measured by an activPAL – which is a device attached to…

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Can we transfer what works in the office to the home work environment?

Latest evidence

COVID-19 has brought about massive shifts in working practices resulting in many employees now working at home/remote working at least some days of the week. While there have now been a number of studies addressing prolonged sitting at the workplace, how these strategies translate to the home work environment is less well understood.  An article titled ‘What works to reduce sedentary behavior in the office, and could these intervention components transfer to the home working environment?: A rapid review and transferability appraisal’ was recently published in Frontiers in sports and active living to help understand this issue. The aim of the review was to build on existing evidence to identify what works to reduce sedentary behaviour in an office environment, and consider whether these could be transferrable to support employees working at home. The results of a systematic search of databases CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, PsycInfo, CINHAL, and SportDiscus from 10 August 2017 to 6 September 2021 were added to the references included in a 2018 Cochrane review of office based sedentary interventions. Informed by the Behavior Change Wheel, the most commonly used intervention functions and behavior change techniques were identified from the extracted data. Finally, a sample of common intervention strategies were…

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Staying physically active during self-quarantine – guidance from WHO

Key resources

With COVID-19 cases still high and influenza cases rapidly escalating, we are continuing to spend substantial amounts of time confined to home. The WHO recently released guidance on why and how to stay physically active during self-quarantine. The article, which is available here, has been reproduced below. Although written for the European region, the key messages are applicable to our Australian context. Stay Physically Active During Self-Quarantine Warning: This guidance is intended for people in self-quarantine without any symptoms or diagnosis of acute respiratory illness. It should not replace medical guidance in case of any health condition. As new COVID-19 cases continue to emerge in the WHO European Region, many healthy individuals are being requested to stay at home in self-quarantine. In some countries, fitness centres and other locations where individuals are normally active, will remain temporarily closed. Staying at home for prolonged periods of time can pose a significant challenge for remaining physically active. Sedentary behaviour and low levels of physical activity can have negative effects on the health, well-being and quality of life of individuals. Self-quarantine can also cause additional stress and challenge the mental health of citizens. Physical activity and relaxation techniques can be valuable tools to…

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How does the pandemic ‘encourage’ sedentary behaviour?

Latest evidence

The pandemic had certainty hit the world and changed everyone’s habits and routines. To slow down the spread, and prevent worsening of the impacts, the governments of many countries implemented tight restrictions on movement and socialisation. Although these measurements are highly effective and important in allaying the spread of COVID-19, the limitations, which included restrictions to outside activities and social distancing, have resulted in the adoption of unhealthy behaviours in large segments of the population, including increases in sedentary time and decreases in physical activity. During the highest level of lockdown, travel limitations were also imposed. For example, this rule was implemented in the Greater Sydney where movements were restricted to within 5 kilometres from home when COVID-19 cases were at its peak. This restriction likely reduced time spent in the incidental movements, like going to the shops, that are part of normal life. Exacerbating this, studies showed that people also tend to spend more time at home on activities that minimised movements, such as using electronics which further increase excessive screen time. For example, the average sitting time in the US increased by 3 times to 6 hours per day since the declaration of the pandemic.  Furthermore, as BeUpstanding’s…

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

Bite size facts

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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Hack for a home office – article from ABC online 31st March

News and Events

This article was posted by the ABC online on the 31st March, 2020. You can find the original article here.  Working from home during coronavirus shutdown? These hacks may help keep ease the pain of your home office ABC Health & Wellbeing – By Genelle Weule Working from home can be physically and psychologically challenging. (Getty Images: Planet Flem) Kitchen benchtops and dining room tables around Australia have become workspaces as office workers have been advised to work from home in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Where the opportunity to work from home in your PJs might have once seemed like a treat, the rapid shift to working from home — if that is even an option for you — is challenging. Suddenly, you may find yourself working in the same space as your family, bent over a laptop instead of sitting or standing at a dedicated workstation with ergonomic equipment. The combination of long hours on a laptop on the kitchen table can be both physically and psychologically stressful over the long haul. “It’s worth investing some time thinking about how to make this work to protect your physical and mental wellbeing,” said Jodi Oakman, who leads the Centre for Ergonomics and Human…

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Keep it moving – fact sheets from Baker Heart & Diabetes Institute now available

Bite size facts

One of the Academic partners on BeUpstanding – Baker Heart & Diabetes Institute – has put together some fantastic resources and fact sheets to help people keep it moving during the pandemic. Below is a snip from their healthy adults fact sheet. They also have fact sheets for people living with heart disease, people living with diabetes, people living with cancer, and older adults. This is just the start of a series of blogs and resources we will be providing to you through our BeUpstanding blog as we adjust to these extra-ordinary times. Stay safe, stay well, be kind – and, if you can – BeUpstanding.

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