Why Office Workers Must Do Yoga

Desk or office workers often come up complaining about almost negligible physical activity during their 8-hour job. And the irony is that those with a standing job complain about not getting time to sit for a while and take rest. But, the truth is that a desk job actually makes people suffer from some serious health issues.

Office work demands a person to continuously sit indoors for eight or nine long hours every day. While you understand what sitting means, do you understand what the eight-hour sitting "actually" means? It means the absence of any kind of movement in the body along with instigation of a bad posture while you keep sitting. Bad posture indicates bad health i.e. a host of physical health problems.

And this is just not it; it could take a greater toll on your health than you could imagine.

You must have always been told that sitting all day long is simply not good for your health. But, to what extent is it bad? And, what must be done so as to avoid its ill effects?

First of all, sitting continuously for long time periods results in lack of flexibility and mobility in the body. You may get joint pains while experiencing worsening health of spine. Your hip muscles tend to get tightened, which causes loss in hip mobility. Your hips do not move properly, even if you exercise. In the wake of the same, the spine instigates that movement and causes back pain.

Exercise alone is not enough

Every bit of this statement is true to the core. Even if you do a good amount of exercise, that's simply not adequate. To prevent the critical illnesses such as cardiovascular diseases or diabetes that result out of sedentary lifestyle, you need to move. Constant movement is necessary every half an hour, including when you are on the job.

Experts say that introducing movement at short intervals may help in averting catabolism i.e. tissue break down. Besides, you should consider discussing this thing with your colleagues or friends while encouraging them to do the same.

A study suggests that even if a person in a sitting job makes sure that he stands for five minutes every thirty minutes, he may develop the potential to prevent catabolism. Nevertheless, standing alone may not work wonders. You must stretch while standing so as to make the most of it.

Ah! Are you hesitant of doing that in front of your co-workers? Well! It's not possible to remain healthy if you keep worrying about how silly you may look doing it. Just keep your health at the priority along with your work. In fact, if you do yoga in the office, it may persuade others as well to join you. After all, everyone wants to keep fit and fine. It is actually a must for each one of us to continue working and keep earning.

Sitting for long hours may end up making you suffer from spondylosis, headaches, insomnia, back pain, depression, anxiety, and more. While people generally prefer tackling these issues with pain killers, this is not the solution. In fact, the truth lies in the fact that these pain killers or antibiotics damage your heart, liver and kidney too, thereby gradually and silently killing you.

How does yoga help?

Simple yoga postures, including a hip flexor stretch, neck stretcher, change of focus, seated backbend and seated twist, in office may help reduce or prevent pains. These stretching postures help you regain focus, and improve your concentration. A number of companies have been increasingly embracing yoga for this very reason. They have understood how important this simple exercise is for employees to release stress. Besides, the more the employees remain stress-free and concentrate on their work, the better it is for the company.

In a nutshell, it's a win-win for both the employees and the company.

Benefits of Yoga

1. It boosts your productivity and potential -

Different yoga postures such as meditation helps you improve your concentration, which lets you focus more on your assigned tasks. Breathing exercises let you clear out the mental chaos, which makes you more alert to increase your productivity.

2. It reduces stress -

Stress, be it emotional or mental, is a common issue with employees which adversely impacts their health as well as performance. Severe stress may result in varied physical conditions such as allergies, headaches, heart ailment, isolation, etc. Yoga is one of those strategies that naturally help you calm down and relax your mind. Yoga, merely for 20 minutes every day, can help you sleep well at night and reduce stress.

3. It prevents malingering -

Yoga helps you keep fit and healthy, which lets you make healthy lifestyle choices. You choose healthier foods over junk food and naturally improve your energy levels while enhancing your focus. Your mood gets better, and all this together helps you avert malingering. You stay active all the time.

4. It helps cut employees' healthcare costs -

As mentioned afore, yoga helps one and all maintain good health while preventing the instigation of many mild or critical ailments. Healthy employees mean lesser number of sick leaves and reduced level of absenteeism, which further indicates reduced healthcare costs of employees.

5. It creates an optimistic environment -

Yoga makes you concentrate on your breaths in and out, thereby helping you focus on what's happening in the present. This simple exercise helps you stop being bothered about what happened in the past or about what's next. When you feel contented and happy with where you are at present, you tend to care less about what's happening around and outside you. It boosts optimism in you and improves your health on psychological grounds.

6. It encourages team work -

Joining group sessions of yoga may encourage a feeling of togetherness in you. You develop a sense of moving together with others, which eventually brings about team work and cooperation in you.

Most importantly, yoga surely prompts self-motivation and improved memory in employees, which is an inevitable factor in the corporate world to achieve goals.

-Sakshi J. Arora

Sakshi is an expert writer who loves to research about new topics to write on.

Article Source: www.EzineArticles.com