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Maintaining good health and keeping fit while working from home can often seem like a near-impossible task, as it’s far too easy to spend your days confined to a desk only to transfer yourself to the sofa when your shift is over. This can have a dire effect on the way that you feel both physically and mentally, leaving you tired and sluggish, unable to focus, and potentially unable to sleep, too. It’s vital that you can turn your routine around as both your mind and body need more engagement than a day inside on your laptop can offer. Let’s look into some tips to stay fit and healthy while working from home.  

Make Time For Exercise

One of the most important things that you should do if you want to stay fit and healthy while working remotely is to make time for exercise most days out of the week. Working out is probably the last thing on your mind when you feel as though you have little energy to play with, yet it’s actually the perfect solution to put some pep back in your step.

Taking the opportunity to set time aside 30 before, during a break, or after your shift to perform some sport or an exercise routine will transform the way that you feel both physically and mentally, as you’ll feel refreshed and revitalized with a burst of energy that you can use to your advantage! You don’t need to head to the gym to work out either, as there are so many different home-based exercise options that you can experiment with to find something you genuinely enjoy doing. A home gym made up of a few basic items like free weights and resistance bands can offer you a full-body workout that’s just as intense as any aerobics class that you could visit outside of your house. 

There are also several exercises that you can do around your desk:

  • Arm Circles: Seating with your back straight and your feet planted on the floor, hold your arms straight out to the sides and move them in tight circles forwards and then backwards. You can do about 20-40 circles each direction.
  • Calve Raises: Seating with your back straight, push through the balls of your feet and raise your heels until you are on your tippy toes and hold. Then lower your heels slowly – repeat 20-30 times. You can perform calve raises standing as well.
  • Seated Back Extensions: The exercise below shows how to do seated back extensions, a great exercise for your lower back.
Seated Back Extension
  • Clenches: Clench your glutes and hold for 10-20 seconds five times to tight up and strenthen your gluteal muscles. You can do the same with your quads and your biceps by keeping a 90-degree angle with your arms
  • Seated Leg Raises: While seated with your core tight, hold your legs out straight in front of you for 10 seconds. Then, proceed to lift and lower your legs without touching the floor for 20-50 reps – you can alternate legs as well. 
  • Leg Extensions: The exercise below shows how to do leg extensions, a great exercise for your quads.
  • Squats: If you have a break, you can stand up and do air squats. If you are very deconditioned, you can stand up and sit down while keeping your back straight for 20-40 times.

Stretch

Doing a few simple stretches daily can also make a huge difference in your health. Stretching can reduce your risk of injury. It decreases low-back pain, muscle stiffness, and post-exercise aches. It improves your circulation, range of motion, and mechanical efficiency. Additionally, stretching helps improve posture and manage stress.

  • You can stretch your hands, arms, ankles, and neck by doing rotations – Rotating those body parts in both directions and doing 5 sets of 8-15 reps in each direction.
  • You can stretch your core by rotating at the waist. While sitting neutral, you can rotate as far to one side as you can and then towards the other side – holding for 10-30 seconds. You can grab the backrest of your chair for a deeper stretch.
  • You can also stretch your shoulders, arms, and back while sitting down by reaching out and extending those muscles – holding the stretch for 30 seconds.
  • Additionally, you can stretch your posterior chain muscles (back, glutes, and hamstrings) by standing up and slowly reaching out towards your toes, letting your head and upper body weight hang.

Don’t Give Into Food Temptations

Another tip to stay fit and healthy while working from home is to have a healthy diet. Working from home can have a disastrous effect on your diet, and this is mainly due to the fact that you’re surrounded by temptation. You wouldn’t have easy access to an entire kitchen full of goodies when you are at the office. Having such a wealth of food options ready and waiting to be eaten just feet away from you can be an enormous distraction to deal with. A great way to reduce this is by changing the way that you shop, as cutting down the number of snacks that you buy will mean that you have to spend time preparing and cooking something to eat rather than simply grabbing it as you go. Setting aside a good amount of time for your lunch break will also help you to stay on track, as attempting to work through your break will only lead to sugar crashes and hunger pangs that cause binge eating and fast food cravings.

Have Good Posture

Maintaining good posture throughout your shift is another tip to keep in mind. This is extremely important to remember as slumping can happen after just a few minutes of sitting at a desk. Having the right posture can help to promote good circulation and avoid musculoskeletal imbalances and misalignment. Make sure that you are sitting up tall in your chair with your shoulders back, your back straight, and your hips and knees at a 90-degree angle.

You can also work on your balance and stability by choosing your seating area. You can do so by sitting down on a swiss ball or balance ball chair. Sitting on a fitness ball helps you to keep your core engaged, reduce lower back pain, and improve posture.

Promote Good Circulation

Research shows that sitting down all day is detrimentally linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and premature mortality. There are numerous musculoskeletal problems as well. Additionally, your circulation can be affected. Your legs and feet begin to experience a variety of different issues and you can develop an array of aches and pains in your neck, back, and hips as a result of your constant seated position.

A great investment that you can make to promote good health when sitting down all day is compression socks, as despite common misconceptions these are not just for the elderly or ultramarathon runners. You can wear compression socks all day to encourage great blood circulation, and you can learn more straight from the source to see whether such an investment could benefit you today. At the same time, try to incorporate supplements that increase circulation.

Learning how to get back on track to promote ultimate wellbeing doesn’t have to be as difficult as you had initially imagined. Follow the above tips to stay fit and healthy while working from home and you’ll feel and see a noticeable difference in no time at all!

To a Fitter Healthier You,

Adriana Albritton

The Fitness Wellness Mentor

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