Adopting productive behaviors to help you stay fit and healthy at work can be tough. It can be a real challenge to overcome the inertia of your current habits.
One truism is that it takes 30 days to develop a new habit. Here’s a video from Google’s Matt Cutts that can help motivate you to try something new this month:
With Matt’s inspiration in mind, here are some ideas to jump-start your commitment to staying fit and healthy at work. Pick just one, try it for 30 days, and see how you feel September 1.
- Spend at least 5 minutes each day this month consciously breathing. Try one of these breathing exercises, or make up your own.
- Improve your diet by adding a serving of vegetables every day this month and/or subtracting a latte or candy bar each day.
- Get moving for at least 30 minutes every day this month. There are currently 20 exercises in the exercise section of this blog, just about enough for one each work day this month.
- To counteract the hazards of sitting all day, spend at least half your work day standing this month. Get (or build) a standing desk. Talk your co-workers into a walking meeting once a week.
- Take a quick micro-nap every day this month around halfway between waking and bedtime.
- Get at least 8 hours of sleep every night for the next 30 days.
- Make up your own challenge. Think of a positive behavior that you want to add to your life or a negative one that you want to eliminate, and work on it every day for the next month.
My challenge this month? To write a blog post on office fitness every day. Even though it’s the middle of summer, even though I have family visiting and a bunch of other social obligations, and even though my massage practice is keeping me hopping, I promise to give you at least one juicy tidbit of office fitness info every (business) day.