Prioritizing Daily Activity

Kim’s Random Thought of the Day: Human bodies are made for movement. Not just 30 or 60 minutes a day, but throughout the day. Daily activity is even more important than dedicated workouts. We often talk about what we can do if we have sedentary jobs, but do employers also have a responsibility here? 

Most of my work is on the computer, but I am lucky to have the freedom to work however and wherever I want. Today is a gorgeous sunny morning and I’m sitting in the grass in my yard typing this. At Wild Gym, not only are movement breaks allowed, but they are actively encouraged. We often have phone calls rather than video meetings so we can be out walking while we conquer the small business world. A few years back I was out for a short hike and the boss called asking if I could grab some data to bring a scheduled meeting. I told him I was hiking but should have time to grab it beforehand. He said “You know what? Let’s move the meeting to tomorrow and then you can enjoy more hiking time.” How many jobs do that!? I don’t think I could ever return to a job that required me to be at a desk for 8 hours a day and valued call volume statistics over health.

It’s been 33 years since I took my first job and only 5 of those years were spent in a full-time office job where I had to sit at a desk the whole time. Those 5 years were detrimental even in that short time span. Not only the sedentary work itself but the “pizza Fridays” and “I’m getting Chinese food, who wants something?” and Thursday post-work bar nights.  I’ve talked many times about how I grew up with an active lifestyle. I was an '80s kid who played outside until it got dark running, jumping, climbing, biking, and swimming all day. Our family was active, always doing something interesting on weekends from exploring the rocky beaches of Lake Superior to making homemade rootbeer to picking berries.

In adulthood that carried into my work, where I usually did jobs that kept me on my feet for 15,000 steps a day. I loved unloading heavy boxes from trucks and carrying them up tall ladders. After work, I’d take my kids to the park to play. Like many, I considered that work “menial” and wanted to move up in the world, so I took the office job. I made more money but my kids had to go to daycare.  The other trade-off was losing the high level of daily activity that is hard to maintain when you spend 8 hours in a cubical. 

For the first 30 or so years of my life, I was active for the majority of my day and then suddenly the tables turned and I had to find ways to fit in an hour of some type of exercise. Ironically, the less hard I worked during the day the more tired I was which made working out even harder. I bought memberships, programs, and equipment but quick workouts never fulfilled the need my body had to be active throughout the day. 

The area I grew up in was primarily blue-collar folks, including most of my family. My grandpa was a carpenter. My dad and uncles are all talented in similar arts, building homes and furniture and repairing roofs. My mom, grandmas, and aunts made quilts, afghans, and clothing. They grew huge gardens and canned shelves packed with jams and veggies. Even today there are a lot of people here who work with their hands and bodies. I respect them so much. Everyone around me was busy all the time growing up and that busyness also fostered more human connections. I miss it. 

Somehow, as a society, we have tipped into a belief that respectable work is the kind done with the mind while the body is stationary, and work done with the body is “menial” labor. Menial is defined as “not requiring much skill and lacking prestige.” What a bunch of hooey! We pay a premium for Amish-made wood furniture, or to hire a plumber, an HVAC tech, or an electrician because their skills are valuable. It’s bizarre that we believe that answering emails and attending Zoom meetings all day requires skill but labor jobs do not.

Sorry for the tangent! My point is that moving our bodies all day, every day, is how humans came to be what we are, and now we’ve let that go in favor of working in square cubicle prisons. We strive to work in places that keep us tied to a desk for the majority of our waking hours and then we are so mentally drained that we spend hours watching TV afterward. Corporations and industries drive those expectations. How do we find a balance going forward?

When I worked full time in an office I didn’t have a balance. My health suffered for it. My activity level suffered for it. I don’t know if it’s because I spent my first 30 years being active all the time, but my body isn’t happy with 30 minutes a day of workouts. I enjoy my dedicated workout time, but my body needs to move throughout the day for me to feel like my life is balanced.

I remember years ago after I left my full-time office job to stay home with our kids, I was doing the P90X program. It was near the end and I was exhausted from doing 75 minutes of hard workouts every day. I wondered why my friends could stop drinking soda and walk 30 minutes a day and lose weight. For me to make progress with my body I needed 75 minutes a day of hard workouts. It felt unfair because I knew I couldn’t sustain doing those workouts every day for the rest of my life. I realized it wasn’t workouts that kept me in shape before. It was my life. 

Think about that phrase “in shape.” Our bodies are the shape of the life we live. We are always “in shape” if we think about it, just perhaps not the shape we want to be. In order for my body to be “in shape” my life has to be in shape as well. For me, that is more than just the time I spend with the workout timer running. If I want my health and my body to be “in shape” then my life has to be “in shape” too, and that can’t mean spending 50% of my waking hours in a desk chair and another 25% of them on the couch. 

There have been thousands of articles about how those who are full-time office workers can work movement into their day. Do ankle circles at your desk. Stand up to stretch. Park further so you get steps in. Take the stairs. So far, that entire dilemma has fallen on workers. But are there opportunities for employers to allow more movement in the workplace?

If you work in an office, what things could employers do to help you move more during the day? What if you had the freedom to take calls on your phone instead of at your desk so you could walk around the building, or outside? Standing desks can be a good option so you can change positions, but too often people just end up standing for hours rather than sitting, which isn’t any better. When my husband still worked in an office, they had a gym. People who wanted to use it paid a small fee and then had access to the equipment and showers. Many people used it on their lunch breaks. Even something as simple as having a shower can be so helpful. I know a lot of people who would ride bikes to work if they didn’t have to wear business attire and could shower so they didn’t arrive at their desks all sweaty.

I personally think we need shorter work periods. Shorter work weeks along with shorter work days so people have more time available. When my kids were home during covid lockdown, I learned quickly how much of their school time is spent doing nothing. One of them was in 6th grade and the other was in 12th. The amount of real work they had consisted of 1-2 hours a day, at most, and yet they spent 7 hours at school. Our work is often the same. How many people are spending time at work when they aren’t even working but are just a body in a chair attending yet another pointless meeting to talk about the work that isn’t getting done, which can’t get done because there are so many meetings? It’s not valuable to us and it’s not valuable to employers, so why do we insist on keeping it this way? How do we change it so that we can lead more active, meaningful lives? 

Whether you are an employer or an employee, sedentary jobs are bad all around. We usually put the responsibility of finding ways to move more on the worker, but what can employers do to make this easier and more acceptable in the workplace? Any thoughts?

Have a wild weekend!!

Kim