How Working Through Your Breaks Can Affect Your Health

Have you ever considered how working through your breaks can affect your health in very bad ways?

Let’s look at a sample scenario. Have you ever worked at your desk or workstation for the entire day? You meant to get up for breaks, but kept working. You weren’t that hungry, so you just snacked at your desk because you were on a roll. You had intended to refill your water jug throughout the day, but didn’t get around to it. In fact, the only time you remember leaving your desk is when you had to quickly skedaddle to the bathroom then ran back to your desk so you could knock out that one more thing from your endless to do list.

On the one hand, it’s great that you can stay that focused and driven for the entire day. On the other hand, doing this is actually detrimental to your health. Various specialists I’ve spoken with have shared the following opinions with me about sitting all day long:

Joints – if you sit all day long, they stiffen, as do muscles; this decreases your flexibility, which leads to more issues as you age

Brain – many functions in the brain (most especially creativity and problem-solving ability) are revitalized when you walk for as few as five minutes

Heart – nearly every function in your body from your cognitive abilities and ability to focus to your immune system to your leg movement requires your body to maintain good circulation throughout the day; this means standing up and walking around for at least a few minutes each hour

Lungs – we lose oxygen capacity if our lungs are not exercised; if you sit all day long and never experience some kind of moderate increase in cardio, you’re not exercising your lungs

Emotions – when we remain in the same physical space, that can make it more difficult to change our emotional state, which can lead to stress levels remaining elevated

If you go to the opposite extreme, you should know that standing all day long can lead to nearly the same issues you’d experience if you sit all day long. The key is to move as often as possible throughout the day.

If you experience any side effects of sitting all day or standing all day, your productivity levels will degrade over time because your brain functions will slow from either medical causes or from the subconscious worries you have from these side affects you’re suffering from. Additionally, you’ll lose time to medical appointments to address these issues.

In next week’s blog, I’ll share my personal experience from one of these side effects and how it’s currently being addressed.

For more productivity strategies and tips to improve your work flow so you won’t feel obligated to work through your breaks, peek at The Inefficiency Assassin: Time Management Tactics for Working Smarter, Not Longer.