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Educate to Elevate: The Theory Behind BeUpstanding Weeks 2 and 5

BeUpstanding Stories

Feeling foggy? You’re not alone. When we sit for too long, our blood flow and metabolism slow down. This means less oxygen is supplied to our brain and we can feel fatigued and sluggish. So why not jump up and start feeling more focused and less tired? That’s exactly what the BeUpstanding intervention is all about, especially during weeks 2 and 5, where the focus is on education and empowerment. These crucial weeks centre around the risks of prolonged sitting and the benefits of standing and moving more. But this isn’t just about throwing facts at you—it’s about strategically targeting the barriers and facilitators of behaviour change, as recommended by the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW). Let’s break down how this messaging works through the lens of the Capacity, Opportunity. Motivation (COM-B) model and the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF). These frameworks have been explored in more detail on our previous blog post. Capability Understanding the risks associated with sitting too much and the benefits of being more active is one of the biggest barriers for people to sit less and stand more. Weeks 2 and 5 of the BeUpstanding intervention address this by enhancing psychological capability, with a focus on the…

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Turning that ‘why’ into ACTION

Key resources

If you had a look at our previous post about Finding Your ‘Why’ for reducing your sedentary time at work, you will have seen a bunch of questions asking you about why this change is important to you. In this blog, we’re picking up from that last question – what comes next? ­– and helping you to move from contemplating the ‘why’, to seeing your goals in action. We’ll do this by filling the G.A.P. – using Goal setting, Action planning and Progress evaluation. We have applied some research on goal-setting (explained here) to provide you with some questions that follow this framework. GOAL SETTING The focus here is on identifying where you are now and where you want to be. If there is a gap there, we’re working out what needs to happen to help bridge that gap. Think about where you’re at right now with your sedentary time at work. How do you feel when you think about your current physical activity at work? Next, think about where you want to be with your sedentary time at work. How would you like your physical activity to look throughout your workday? Is there a difference or a gap between where your…

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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…

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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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How our early adopters helped to shape BeUpstanding

BeUpstanding Stories

The BeUpstanding program is based on over a decade of evidence into what works to help support desk-based workers sit less and move more. The foundation for the program was the Stand Up Victoria study, a randomised controlled trial where the research team delivered the intervention components and ran the evaluation. The initial translation of this intervention into an online program that uses a “train-the-champion” approach to guide workplace champions to deliver and evaluate the program themselves has been previously described, showing that it was effective and acceptable. In the latest paper from the BeUpstanding team we report on Phase 3 of the translation process – our early adopters of the program. What were we evaluating in Phase 3? Phase 3 ran from when we first went “live” with the program on September 1st, 2017 until the start of the national implementation trial in mid June 2019. The purpose of this phase was to test the sign-up process and the new platform that we had developed to be able to deliver and evaluate the program. We also wanted to evaluate the extent to which the program and processes were “fit-for-purpose” for our national implementation trial. To test this, we did…

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VicHealth Award Nomination!

Press

We are super excited to announce that BeUpstanding™ has been nominated as a finalist in the VicHealth Awards, under the category Research into Action. It feels great to be recognised for our work of translating the Stand Up Australia research program into BeUpstanding™. You can check out our spotlight here. We would like to thank our wonderful partners and collaborators: VicHealth, Comcare, Safe Work Australia, Queensland Office of Industrial Relations, Healthier Workplacce WA / Heart Foundation WA (now transitioned to Cancer Council WA), The University of Queensland, Deakin University, Baker Heart & Diabetes Institute, and Curtin University. And of course, a huge thank you to all of the champions and work teams who have taken up BeUpstanding™ in their workplace. We continue to work hard to provide the best resources to help you stand up, sit less, and move more throughout your day. Congratulations to all of the other finalists! There are some incredible teams, so go check them out on the VicHealth Awards page, and make sure you stay tuned…winners will be announced December 5th, 2018.

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