A couple of months ago, I was asked to give a talk at an architecture firm. Their employees sit for most of the work day, and they wanted me to discuss some things they could do to offset some of the negative consequences of prolonged sitting.
Sedentary activity has been shown to decrease health. A study done in 2012, showed that excessive sitting is associated with a larger waist circumference, a higher body mass index, and increased triglyceride levels (1).
Needless to say, physical activity is pretty important. And unfortunately our society has an activity problem.
Most of us sit between 8-9 hours per day. You sit while driving to work, you sit at work, you sit to eat lunch, you sit to drive home from work, and you sit to eat dinner. All of this adds up over time.
As I was creating the presentation, I began thinking about some easy ways to increase activity levels for office workers. A few simple ones came to mind like: parking farther away, taking the stairs versus the elevator, and getting up to go talk to a co-worker instead of emailing them.
All of these will help and are simple to do but I wanted to give them something more. And then it hit me. It’s something I use and it’s free.
The primary reason most of us sit is because we are working at our computer all day. So wouldn’t it be nice if there was a program that reminded you to get up and walk around every so often?
The good news is there is!
Google chrome has an extension called Postureminder. You can get it here.
As long as you have google chrome, you can download it and add it to your menu bar. Once you open it, you’ll see a screen that looks like this.
It has two features that make it the perfect way to combat the ill effects of prolonged sitting.
The first is it allows you to create a reminder to improve your posture. You’ve probably noticed you slouch over if you’re at the computer for too long, right? You can set this reminder to pop up every few minutes as a gentle reminder to sit up straight.
The second is a walk reminder that you can set to remind you to get up and walk around for bit. This feature is the most important. Because it’s the one that will actually get you out of the chair and moving.
Another great thing about it is you can set the reminders to stay on the screen until you click on it. That little notification in the top right corner will bug you until you actually do what it wants you to do 🙂
After I gave that talk, I heard back from one of the employees in the company a day later. She told me that they had downloaded the Postureminder extension and were loving it.
So if you’re an office worker that wants to improve your health and reduce the consequences of sitting for so long, this is a perfect way to start.
Not only that, but it will also help break up the monotony of the day. You’ll get to a point where you’ll actually looking forward to taking your walk break. And I’m sure it will help you be a little more productive at work too.
Give it a try and let me know how it’s working for you in the comments below!
References:
1. Owen, N. et al. Too much sitting: the population-health science of sedentary behavior. Exerc Sport Sci Rev. 2012 Jul 25.
