Nine Reasons Why A Treadmill Desk Is Great For You
In the US there is a growing demand in offices for at least one treadmill desk. Why is there such a high demand for such products? It’s because of the great benefit they have for the health of the user as well as the productivity of the business.
According to scientists, sitting is becoming ‘the new smoking’, with significant unhealthy results from too much sitting being done by the average person. The reason why so many people are sitting down too often is because office workers are being forced to work for long hours of the day. Many workers now even eat their lunch at their desk. This can lead to unhealthy weight gain, poor circulation and mental health problems.
So, what are the nine best reasons why a treadmill desk should be used?
1. A Treadmill Desk Can Help You Lose Weight
One of the key aspects of a treadmill desk is that it can help the user lose weight quickly. Too many office workers are suffering from being overweight or obese as they spend more than 8 or 9 hours a day sitting down. A treadmill can be a great way to help people fit that all important exercise into their working day.
Just walking at three miles per hour on a treadmill can help you burn 219 calories per hour. In contrast, when sitting down you’re burning just 68 calories. Therefore, just a simple walk can help you burn three times the amount of calories.
2. Exercise After Eating Can Help Metabolism
Exercise is great for increasing your metabolism. This can help you build lean muscle mass and can also help to increase your resting metabolic rate. This improves the number of calories you can burn while your body is in rest.
Any exercise can also help you to increase your metabolic rate for hours after exercise, aiding digestion and lowering the amount of weight gain from meals.
3. Exercise Improves Productivity
There are many ways that exercise improves your productivity. For one, it improves your body’s alertness by increasing blood flow to the brain. This will make you more ready to tackle challenges that can crop up while you’re working.
At the same time, BDNF, a protein that can help improve cognitive skills, is triggered by exercise. This can help you to improve your performance and the amount of work that can be done in the same time.
4. Improve Mental Health
Another way that a desktop treadmill can help you is that it can improve your mental health. There’s a large increase in the number of people who are suffering from anxiety, depression and severe stress in offices. This can be alleviated by exercise; however, it can be difficult for employees to find time out of the office to get the best exercise.
Those who have used treadmill desks at work, have found that they experience less mental health problems, concentrate more on work and experience less stress. This is because exercise stimulates the mind to release positive mood enhancers such as serotonin. This helps to lower staff absenteeism. When stress is costing US companies about $300 billion a year, this could be a very welcome benefit.
5. It Removes A Chore And A Distraction
Sometimes doing exercise can be a chore, especially if there is a lot of work to do. By combining exercise with work, this chore is removed. This can mean that people are less distracted by thinking about when they’re going to fit in their daily exercise.
At the same time, those who are using a treadmill desk are less distracted because they’re concentrating on their work and the walking aspect. This is more than enough to concentrate on, so other things that are happening in the office, like a non-productive conversation at the water cooler are far from the minds of the individual.
Less distractions equal more productivity and a better quality of work.
6. Improved Muscle Tone
Do you know what stops people from exercising more? Its pain in their muscles. Yet even a small amount of walking, say walking for two hours a day at three miles per hour, can help improve muscle tone. This can improve the general healthiness of the person but it can also help people to become more active in other parts of their life.
7. Improve Digestion
Two studies have shown that walking after eating can help with digestion. This is because walking helps the body to move food through the body at a better, more stable rate. Other studies have found that walking will help decrease blood sugar spikes after eating as it clears glucose from the bloodstream. This lowering of the blood sugar levels helps to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
8. Can Offer Competitiveness
In a highly competitive office, walking can be another way that you and your staff can let off steam and be competitive in a friendly way. By monitoring the usage and results of the treadmill desk across the week, people can be rewarded for their use of the treadmill, and work conducted during treadmill desk use.
9. Can Help Regulate Breathing
While sitting, we can sometimes fail to not breath properly. This is only rectified by exercising as your body learns to cope with the exercise by breathing in a more regular pattern. This helps to improve oxygen levels within the blood stream that increases alertness.
This in turn improves productivity even when the treadmill desk is not in use.
Final Word: Why The Treadmill Desk Is Essential For Your Work
If you find yourself sitting down for long periods of the day, you need to incorporate fitness within or alongside your busy schedule. That is why a treadmill desk can be beneficial. As well as working, you could be walking. This can help you be more healthy and productive at work. And if you can benefit, so can others in your office.
