Some undisputed facts – of every 9 hours of our working day at the office, we are glued to our chairs for nearly 3 hours! Occupational health problems like varicose veins, stiffness in the neck, numbness in legs, back-ache are reported by nearly half of the regularly seated employees of any organization! A 2016 Bureau of Labour Statistics survey involving American workers across all civilian jobs revealed that most people employed in corporate jobs, including lawyers, accountants, human resource managers, and software designers spent more than 75 percent of their time sitting than either standing or walking, posing a serious health threat to them. To elongate a little further on the scariest statistics of American sedentary office work culture, my American friend (out of sheer concern for observably decadent health of working professionals) shared with me the horrifying infographic shown below.

Sitting is the new smoking - Sally Barnes

Therapies Revolving around office-exercising

Now even if some gloat about their diurnal exercising and gymming habits, but it is as good as doing nothing than doing something strenuous on your body, then coming back to the office & nullifying the gains. Myriad researches have deep dived into what could possibly keep bodies activated even when they are exposed to a sedentary work-style for long hours. Great professionals on nutrition and physiotherapies have opined about religiously following a balanced diet and practicing some invigorating yoga postures – the effects being diluted in the long run. Things will not run always on compromises, and it is a human habit to cheat on the very rules we take headstrong resolutions on. Funnily, even certain psychotherapists have jumped into rescue by monitoring our mind into adhering to strict dieting and unflinching commitment to exercises. Well, if every health professional derives a job out of this common concern, we would take some privilege to give them a well-deserving rest by nipping the problem at the root.

Long time back when Macintosh was gearing up his raincoat invention for publicity, he said, “You can’t stop the rain! Let the rain happen, but you go out to dry and starched!” Well, a 21st-century idea should not be “Macintoshy” or reactive to a problem but ignorant of its existence. Because, unlike that time, in our times, problems have a multi-pronged approach of gnawing our lives – so better deal with it at the bud. So we are not just dealing with the physical or muscular spasms only, but also concomitant digestive malfunctions and mental weariness. Corporate has taken notice of all these modern health hazards that adversely impact the efficiency of the workers, in fact on the very lines, Facebook, Google, DBIL have come up with many agile work environments that allow employees to take fun-oriented lulls amidst work, ranging from video-games to sleeping pods. But how does that cure them of the rest of the restive work-style??? And can every corporate establishment afford to channelize such heavy resources into employee-friendly work environ which is both incoherent in ROI promises and expensive??

Across continents, the idea to inculcate exercising into the normal work culture of the offices has been a most often plowed ground. Every culture has churned its core civilizational root to pull out the best health strategies that can birth a EUREKA idea! And guess who came out first?? Japan!! Japan solicited the help of its ancient tacts in “Odinkai” to enliven the office work environment. From open work environment that automatically does away with the sedentary cabin work-style, it moved to even design team seating position in geometric concentric so that employees have to regularly twist and twirl around their chairs, swivel around their seats to respond to other members or in order to engage with other members. This involuntary exercising as the result of seating designs kept a lot of employees motivated and electric while working. Even meeting rooms were designed in the pyramidal vortex – much like a globular protrusion.

But the Japanese (who I believe to be the out-rankers in practical intelligence), showed skewed negligence in one point. Office seating designs can definitely trigger ergonomics in the portion above the abdomen but what about the one below it??? The legs are the most active limbs of humans, they are prone to walking, running, or even shaking every day more frequently than hands. Since they carry the entire body weight and harbor the metacenter of our mass in any posture, they suffer the most when we are consistently seated. But more than that, in our formal get-ups where we keep wearing well-polished, embossed-heeled, tapered-end and painstakingly heavy Oxford” formal shoes, do we ever realize what extent of rigor and tear our feet muscles keep bearing all over the day??? Well combining all these aberrations in our physical health maintenance, we could conclude that enough has yet not been done.

Conclusion

Probably the component of exercising is lost in the forest of fun. So, this takes us to scout through all healthy, low-investment exercises that can be imitated into a work environment, in the most wholesome and inclusive way, and yet invisible or intangible to employees. After some readings on the very lines, what kept ringing in my head was “Calisthenics”. They are gross motor movements performed rhythmically with minimal equipment. Something that the popular movie of 2017, OUTCAST revolved around. In general, if you would have ever visited calisthenics parks around societies or even corporate recreational spaces, you would find that the set-up of the equipment is geometrically well-thought but their designs and efforts for the set-up is not a big deal.

Definitely, such art of physical education has never been vigorously commercialized when there are calisthenics experts roaming around the town and movies about the same hitting at the box-office. Now just imagine if the very ambiance of a calisthenics park is traced wideout in the office space. Imagine you enter your workplace, and you don’t bother missing your gym in the morning and standing up to a mountainous load of work for the day – yes, the idea is born. The modern office culture, their interior designs would replicate the same vibrancy as you would have felt in a drill. Do hook upon to know how we re-invigorate the calisthenics designs in the workplace worthy of emulation.