People generally have terrible posture. This is exacerbated by the sedentary nature of modern work. We spend most of our time sitting down, hunched over our computers or phones, straining our back muscles and resulting in musculoskeletal injuries or some feeling of discomfort, mental and visual fatigue and tingling in the legs. At its worst, this lifestyle can lead to cramps, dizziness, tendonitis and lower back pain. These are the occupational hazards of modern work and modern lifestyles. Taking care of your posture and wellbeing is the key to avoiding this sinkhole of health problems.
Create the Right Atmosphere for your Home Office
Although remote work comes with so many benefits, it does bring the risk that we spend more time sitting down or lying in bed, because there’s no need to go to an office somewhere to work. One of the first things that you should do as a remote worker is to redesign or create from scratch, a home office. Typically, people think of a home office in terms of their furniture, but you need to have a more holistic approach to your home office. As important as it is to have ergonomic office furniture, you should also think of your home office’s environmental conditions, lighting and ventilation. In addition, you have to rethink the way you work, utilizing rest periods as part of a pomodoro technique, in which periods of work are punctuated with rest periods. Also, get rid of distractions so that you can work with greater focus and more productively. Block out periods for “deep work”, where you focus on some mentally challenging task, without any distractions around.
When you have breaks, make sure that these breaks are active breaks. In other words, rather than lying down, or just closing your eyes, move around, take a walk, or do some exercises. This will keep your body active, while also stimulating you mentally. Research shows that exercise can improve creative thinking and problem solving. So reframing your idea of work so that active rest periods are a part of your work, has benefits not just for your body, but for the work itself. Ultimately, you will become a much more productive person by using active rest periods, than if you work without getting up.
Exercise will also reduce your stress levels, and release endorphins that will make you a much happier person than if you did not exercise.
Organize your workday in such a way that you have as much movement integrated into your workday as possible. As we said above, the best way to do this is to ensure that you regularly break from work. Although walking is a popular exercise during these breaks, you can do something else, such as push-ups, or squats, or a combination of exercises. This will ensure that you are never overloaded while at work.
Finally, you need to get the very best furniture for your home office, including leather sofas made in America. These will ensure that you have somewhere durable, ergonomic, stable, and safe to work from and hold meetings in your home office.
