Spending long hours at a desk can take a toll on your body and mind, but integrating small, intentional habits into your day can counteract the effects of a sedentary lifestyle. These easy-to-implement strategies fit seamlessly into your daily routine and help improve posture, energy levels, and overall well-being.
Encourage your desk workers to boost well-being by sharing our ideas for 7 healthy habits:
Table of Contents
1. Hydration routines
Staying hydrated is essential for cognitive performance as well as health, but it’s easy to forget to drink water when you’re immersed in work. Can you stack the habit of sipping water onto other routines?
Morning Kickstart: Drink a glass of water first thing – before your morning coffee or tea. Hook the habit onto brushing your teeth or going into the kitchen.
Desk Reminder: Keep a water bottle on your desk and take a few sips every time you finish a task, a phone call or a Zoom meeting. If you are working on a large project with few natural breaks, consider setting a timer and using a bottle with a volume scale.
Infused Hydration: Add slices of lemon, cucumber, or mint to your water for variety and a refreshing boost. Maybe switch between plain and infused water or herbal teas at different times of the day.
2. Nutrition habits
Swap vending machine snacks or sugary treats for healthy alternatives that nourish your body without weighing you down.
- Power Breakfast: Pair your morning coffee or tea with a protein-rich breakfast, like Greek yogurt and berries or a hard boiled egg
- Pre-Plan Snacks: Keep nuts, seeds, or fruit within reach at your desk.
- Working lunch: Make lunch work for you nutritionally and avoid the afternoon slump with a focus on protein and vegetables – try salads with fish, egg or cheese in the summer and vegetable soups or stews including pulses in the winter
3. Active microbreaks
Sitting for long periods can make you feel dull and sluggish, and it is worth checking in with yourself to see whether this is an issue for you and if so how much desk time is too much. Can you break up desk time with a quick movement break? Does even 2 or 3 minutes make a difference? Could you fit this in half hourly or hourly?
Try our suggestions for 10 active microbreaks – maybe try a different one each hour or so and observe what type of movement makes the most impact on your motivation and energy levels.
4. Breath at work
Breath work can help you to relax and destress or to energise. It is a great way of checking in with yourself and how you are and to shift your state if you need to.
Have a look at our breathwork exercises and pick one to try according to how you are feeling. Just a minute of focus can help change your state.
Alternatively, just close your eyes and focus on your natural breathing pattern and observe how it is in the moment.
Can you make breath focus part of your routine by linking it to something else? You could use it to centre yourself before or after meetings, before giving a presentation or to reduce stress after a difficult interaction for example.
5. Mindfulness and Meditation
Breathwork is a form of mindfulness, but if you want to explore alternatives, try one of our meditation practices, again starting small with just a few minutes. Maybe add a quick meditation practice to boost focus before you start work or to help you transition to family life when you finish? Select the Meditation filter in our Practice library for some ideas.
Or simply take a Positivity Pause at the end of your workday, reflecting on one thing you’re grateful for, one thing that went well or one thing that made you happy.
6. Mini yoga breaks
Being static at a desk for much of the day, whether sitting or standing, can result in poor posture and a feeling that parts of the body are “setting” into position. The knock-on effects of this can be stiffness, discomfort, shallower breathing, difficulty in concentrating and feelings of stress.
If you are at a desk for much of the day for work, try to build in one or two of these sequences when you can take a short break, maybe alternating for variety and according to what your body needs. If you don’t have time to do a whole sequence, even one or two movements or stretches will help.
7. Celebrate Movement: Add Activity to Routine Tasks
Lift your energy levels and your spirits by incorporating more movement into your day – every little helps and frequent small bursts of movement add up to a significantly less sedentary day. Get creative about how you can build movement into your daily routine – some ideas might be:
- Walk and talk: Take phone calls and do one to one chats while walking.
- Stretch and Brew: Do light stretches while waiting for tea or coffee to brew.
- Micro-Movements: Try calf raises or heel-to-toe rocking while waiting in a queue.
- Balance and brush: Try balancing on one leg (for example in Tree pose while brushing your teeth
- Meet and move: Have meetings standing up and time boxed. Take a short walk before and after.
- Start strong: Get some strength exercises in before you start a stint at the desk – try Squat_to_Tiptoe for leg strength and Plank to down dog for upper body strength – this can be done with your hands on the wall or the desk instead of the floor if you like.
Conclusion
You don’t need hours of free time to prioritize your health. By weaving small, mindful practices into your day, you can combat the effects of prolonged sitting, boost productivity, and enhance your overall well-being. Start with one or two tweaks to your routine and build from there – your desk can become your wellbeing zone.
Helen Withers, Director, YoPO Wellbeing Limited
If you would like any further information on this update or to request access to YoPO’s bank of wellbeing resources for desk workers, please contact hello@yoponow.com.
References
- Mainsbridge CP, Cooley D, Dawkins S, de Salas K, Tong J, Schmidt MW and Pedersen SJ (2020) Taking a Stand for Office-Based Workers’ Mental Health: The Return of the Microbreak. Front. Public Health 8:215. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.00215
- How yoga, meditation benefit the mind and body (medicalnewstoday.com
