It’s quite common for people today to have developed some form of a sedentary lifestyle. Many jobs require prolonged time sitting at a desk, and with deadlines and targets looming on the horizon, it’s easy to allow ourselves to get hyper-focused on meeting those targets while sacrificing our health. Sitting down for too long and developing a sedentary way of life is a top cause of things like heart disease and stroke, especially when combined with other unhealthy lifestyle choices. To help you beat this problem, we’ve put together some of our best tips for beating a sedentary lifestyle during your time working from home to ensure you have a healthier way of life and ultimately feel great both physically and mentally.

Get Moving And Out Of The House

Your first step in fixing this problem is to try getting yourself out of the house regularly. Consider breaking up your day by taking a five-to-ten-minute walk around the block on your lunch break. Counteract the time lost by preparing your lunch before you start your workday, too, so that you don’t feel rushed once you return home. This will allow you to not only get a bit of activity into your day, but it also serves to reset your mind allowing you to improve your motivation once you return to work too.

Have A Fitness Goal

The idea of getting rid of a sedentary lifestyle is admittedly vague. It’s not entirely clear how to measure those results, but you can better measure the results of a fitness goal. No matter what you want to focus on, whether it’s endurance, strength, flexibility, or an all-around increase in fitness, you can set some goals such as hitting a particular weight or running or swimming a certain distance without stopping. Even if you were choosing to put on weight in the form of muscle mass, this would still help to beat your inactive lifestyle. You could engage in a muscle-building routine while adding healthy protein shakes for weight gain to your diet. This would also encourage you to get away from your desk to prepare your shakes, as well as take the time for a workout too.

Have An Active Morning Routine

Getting moving in the morning is a great way to keep your mind sharp when you start work, and it also helps to offset the time you’ll spend sitting down for prolonged periods of time throughout the day. Of course, while being active at a particular point in the day with a specific intensive exercise session is important and healthy, you should still take measures to cut down the time you spend sitting at your desk as well. Combine a great cardio workout in the morning with simply stepping away from your desk every hour or so to stretch your legs, and you’ll be going a fair way towards breaking your sedentary lifestyle.

Try A Standing Desk

One of the issues with this lifestyle is that you’re sitting down too much. This has been linked to a number of problems for our bodies, including obesity, high blood pressure, and, as mentioned before, an increased chance of developing heart disease and other serious illnesses. It can also present some serious problems with posture, leading to serious musculoskeletal problems. This can be very painful and even have an impact on your mobility too. To help counteract this, you could even consider getting yourself a standing desk so that you don’t have to sit down all day. You also don’t have to stand up all day either, especially if you get a desk which can be altered.

Consider Working At A Coffee Shop

One of the biggest issues we have with working at home is the removal of the commute from our lives. You can get around this either by taking a walk before you start work, returning refreshed and ready to start the day, or you could even aim to go to work in a coffee shop or internet café. This provides you with a makeshift commute, but it also helps to mentally stimulate you. Having a destination to go to for your work will encourage you to get out of the house without simply going for a walk. Even if you simply go to work there for the morning and return home during your lunch break. This change in environment can also improve your motivation too.

Connect With Your Friends And Loved Ones

When searching for ways to encourage yourself to get active, one way in which you can do this is by forging stronger connections with friends and family. Spend time with them out and about, whether it’s going for walks out in nature, taking a trip to an amusement park, or a simple get-together at a coffee shop on your lunch break. Making plans like this can essentially force you to commit to getting away from your desk, and this will significantly improve your quality of life if you try to do this regularly. You can even discuss your aims with friends and family and perhaps agree to work together so that you can all try to reduce your time spent sitting down.

Set Reminders To Get Up

If you are going to keep working from home and don’t feel as though you have the time to go out of the house for walks or exercise, then one thing you can do to help slightly is to take a few minutes every half an hour to get away from your desk and move around your home. This could be to grab a drink or something to eat or even to complete a quick chore that needs doing. Whatever it is that you choose to do, you should set the alarm to go off every half an hour during your work time and get up as soon as it goes off to stretch your legs. This breaks up your sitting time significantly, as one of the main issues with a sedentary lifestyle is how long you sit for each period of time, rather than how many times you choose to sit down.

Turn Some Of Your Work Into Activity

Getting up from your desk doesn’t mean that the work necessarily has to stop either. If you have to make a phone call, for example, you could ensure that you get out of your chair and walk around while having your conversation. If your job involves you taking a lot of calls, then this is a perfect way to handle your inactivity. If your calls last for an average of ten minutes each, and you spend your time standing and walking when taking those calls, and you have six calls in a day, then you’ve done an hour of exercise, just simply walking around your home.

Take This New Mindset Out Of Work Too

It’s not just during our work time that we may spend excessive amounts of time sitting around. Especially after a busy day at work, all many of us want to do is get up from our desks, head downstairs, and flop on the sofa. While you will have exerted yourself mentally during the day, your body will likely feel the strain of being kept in one position for so long and craving some movement, even if you don’t mentally want to do it. Try to commit to half an hour of movement and exercise once you finish work before you start to relax for the evening, and consider using your timer technique to get up and move every thirty minutes, too, even if you’re just watching TV.