Exercise: The Secret to a Productive Lifestyle
May 9th, 2020
Exercise has been repeatedly proven to offer many different benefits. Today we’re going to explore t how exercise can benefit daily productivity; a part of life that has been significantly impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Benefits
Adding regular exercise to your daily routine can benefit your overall productivity both directly and indirectly. To directly benefit productivity, exercise promotes circulating blood flow, oxygen, and glucose to the brain. This has been proven to increase mental focus and output. Indirectly, exercise can help reduce stress, combat fatigue, and increase both quality of sleep and mood. These combined leave you happier, better rested, and less stressed, allowing for a clear and unhindered work day.
Not only does exercising offer positive benefits, it counteracts negative ones. Among other factors, sitting for long periods of time has been linked to decreased productivity, decreased mental wellbeing, and obesity. Incorporating healthy habits such as exercising and investing in a standing desk can help to break up these large chunks of sitting time.
What kinds of exercises?
Now the question is: what kind of exercise is best? Well, that depends on what your goal is. For productivity, the most effective exercises are low to moderate exertion of either aerobic exercises, weight training, walking, or yoga. It’s important to keep your daily exercises at a low to medium exertion because while these exercises result in increased daily energy, high intensity exercises may show decreased daily energy.
When should you exercise?
The best time to exercise for maximum productivity is either in the morning or during lunch time, as both will give you an increased boost for the rest of your day. That being said, a good rule of thumb is any exercise is better than no exercise, so if you’re constrained by the structure of your day you should still fit it in where you can.
Working from home can be tough for anyone. With everyone else home, distractions are plenty, and it’s essential to give yourself as many tools as possible to remain productive. Adding an exercise routine can do wonders for this, as well as add a sense of structure that may have been lost with the switch from on-site work to remote work.
To learn more about the options Ergonomyx has to help fight a sedentary office lifestyle, click here.