Workplace Activation, according to experts 🔥
Sitting for long periods of time is a health risk factor. According to a study by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, the use of a break exercise app reduced sedentary time at work of office workers and increased their light physical activity. It is advisable to support the interruption of sitting by taking active breaks so that it continues after the initial enthusiasm has worn off.
There are a lot of other great writes, research, opinions, articles, true stories about the importance of workplace activation, and it’s meaning to “Body & Soul”.
Rehaboo! Active is a gamified activation program that gets people moving, where the player’s body becomes the game controller, using just the integrated webcam and cloud-based AI tor motion sensing. Rehaboo! is played at workplaces for physical activation and challenges, elderly care homes for refreshment and activation, and hospitals and physical therapy patients for rehabilitation, and especially the workplace concept, post C-19 (or during…) and the “new normal” are in the center of today’s business talks. But, so-called “knowledge workers” at tech companies have been in the new normal already for quite some time.
Well, we could write about this a lot, but rather let those who know more write about it.
⚡️ Here’s a fresh doctoral dissertation by psychologist Kirsi Sjöblom, that points out the challenges faced by the new normal: “Flourishing in 21st-century workplaces”
⚡️ BBC Worklife: a series of “microbreaks” can also have a powerful effect on your body and your mind.
⚡️ Ola Sundell: Redefining workplace: “traditional workplace thinking is fast becoming trivial”. Source.
These three were our favorite writes. Kirsi Sjöblom is a new doctor of psychology, and with her doctoral dissertation, she names three main challenges in the remote work:
1: Work-life balance
2: Bad ergonomy
3: Lack of sense of belonging (and Rehaboo! can help with numbers 2 and 3).
BBC article supports our “Body & Soul” approach within these microbreaks or power breaks as we call them and our friend Ola Sundell’s write on building tomorrow companies could be written by us (which is not, we have had fruitful discussions after his story though:)
Apart from these three, there are a lot of writers on the topic. A lot, googling few keywords means reading more (and hopefully sitting less). We wanted to highlight selected good writes on the topic, and as said, there are so many more to discover. Hope you enjoy these, but remember to get your free 14-day Rehaboo! Active trial at https://rehaboo.com/download, and play our game to figure it out!
👟 Sit less, move more’ workplace studies show that employees improved productivity loss, and lost workday productivity.
👟 As we know that our mental firepower is directly linked to our physical regimen. And nowhere are the implications more relevant than to our performance at work. Over the past decade, social scientists have quietly amassed compelling evidence suggesting that there is another, the more immediate benefit of regular exercise: its impact on the way we think. There are many benefits of exercising, even just a little bit, such as improved concentration, a sharper memory, faster learning, prolonged mental stamina, enhanced creativity, and lower stress.
👟 Not so many years ago, most people were very physically active. Manual labor jobs were much more common, and labor-saving devices were scarce. Walking and cycling were common forms of transport, and leisure time was spent outdoors rather than in front of a TV or computer. Modern technology means that opportunities for physical activity can be a bit harder to come by. https://www.mindrazr.com/blog/why-you-need-to-get-moving-at-work
👟 If you want to dedicate yourself to a lifetime of good habits, don’t start at the gym. Start at the office, and not only withstanding desks (that are a serious benchmark and “competitors” for us).
👟 Starting small, like every day “micro-breaks” will have a number of clear benefits. Just move and avoid inactivity! Find something or several activities you love to do and commit to it daily.
👟 …While it is obvious that your feelings can influence your movement, it is not as obvious that your physical activity impacts your feelings, too.
👟 This has been known for a long time already, even if the digitalization and the post Covid-19 “New Normal” has caused a lot more discussion on the topic. Here’s research from 1981, stating that physical activity associated positively with physical activity at work.
👟 WFH is an often-used hashtag these days. New normal is a radical change. The change has been phenomenal, and it’s just the beginning. But are all the changes positive?
So, I guess it’s time to say get up and move, and even a little helps. According to a Finnish UKK Institute, Centre for Health Promotion Research. Their latest suggestion says that repetitive 2-minute activities already have a lot of benefits to your health, and those are easy to do within the workday, at the workplace, or at remote work locations. See the Physical Activity Pie from UKK institute, and get up and move (a little).
When your Oura smart ring, your Fitbit wrist computer, or other personal tracking devices tells you to “Strech your legs a bit” or sends hourly activity reminder alerts, why not challenge a colleague to a PowerBreak with Rehaboo! Get in touch to get the Challenge into your workplace.
/Peter Green
CEO, founder, sensei, squatter
peter@rehaboo.com
