BeUpstanding™ Blog

Office

3 Posts Back Home

5 Reasons Why Workers Should Incorporate a Post-Lunch Walk into Their Day

Bite size facts

Are you looking for a way to avoid that 3pm energy slump? Or even better, are you looking for an easy way to improve your mental clarity, digestion and other crucial components of your daily life? It may sound too good to be true, but a simple lunch-break walk after eating is one simple way to improve your health and wellbeing in various ways. This article will explore five major health benefits associated with a short walk after lunch, whether that be 10 minutes or 30 minutes – something is better than nothing! Reason 1: Blood Sugar Control Firstly, walking has been found to regulate the body’s blood sugar response. After you consume food your body experiences a spike in blood-sugar. The extent of this blood sugar spikes depends on many different variables, but a major one is the type of food that you consume. For example, if you consume a refined carb-heavy food such as a donut, your blood sugar may spike a lot higher and quicker than it might if you ate something like an apple, which contains more fibre, which helps to slow down this blood sugar spike. When your blood sugar spikes really quickly, it also…

Keep Reading

Loading

Finding your ‘why’ for moving more at work

Latest evidence

This won’t be like most articles that you’re used to reading online. You won’t find 6 quick steps to feeling more motivated to reduce sedentary time at work. You won’t see expert secrets that promise “one strategy to unlocking your inner drive”. What you might find is something more valuable to you as an individual. Because the reality is, we’re all just too different for there to be one motivation to change. No one thinks and experiences the world quite like you do. What motivates you to move more at work, may not be the same thing that motivates your colleague, team leader or morning coffee buddy. In a world where we’re loaded with information about what we should and shouldn’t do, we could probably do with a bit more “why” time. So, we’ve parked the “what” for now and instead focused on ways for you to consider your own internal motivators. This is a way to help you to find your own, individual ‘why’ for reducing the sedentary time and moving more at work. If you’re still reading, it’s likely that you’re thinking about changing your sedentary time at work. Or at the very least, you’re curious about whether…

Keep Reading

Loading

How 2 minute activity breaks during the workday can reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease

Latest evidence

In a typical week in the office, workers on average can spend 30 hours of their workday sitting, with much of this accrued in prolonged, unbroken bouts. Sedentary behaviours, such as sitting, increases ‘bad’ cholesterol (LDL–C), decreases ‘good’ cholesterol (HDL–C) levels and increases the risk of abnormal glucose metabolism. These physiological markers can contribute to an increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease mortality, and diabetes. Previous studies have found that regularly breaking up prolonged sitting with activity breaks can have benefit for these indicators of cardiometabolic health in a laboratory setting. However, the impacts of regular breaks in an office setting are less clear. One simple way to increase breaks in prolonged sitting is to schedule short 2-minute activity breaks throughout the day by climbing stairs. A recent pilot study published in BMC Public Health Journal investigated the feasibility of introducing prompted stair climbing exercise breaks into the workplace and assessed any resulting improvements in glucose and cholesterol levels. It also evaluated the acceptability of such activity as an interruption of their work. What was done? Over eight weeks, 16 sedentary office workers from the United Kingdom (five females) took part in this quasi-experimental research study. Blood samples were taken…

Keep Reading

Loading

Navigate