March 2022 - Body Techniques

March 31, 2022March 21, 2022

Yoga Poses To Combat Sitting All Day At Work

Desk job employees: when’s the last time you took a moment to stretch your muscles?

Stretching is so much more than being able to touch your toes or being flexible – it’s an opportunity to build a healthy mind-body connection that so many of us seem to lose sight of because our desk jobs are so demanding mentally.

The hard truth? Humans aren’t made to sit 8-10 hours per day. In fact, long periods of sitting can actually be harmful in the grand scheme of things. But don’t worry, our certified yoga instructors have created a beginner-friendly sequence of poses to combat sitting all day.

But before finding your zen, it’s important to understand how desk jobs can harm us when we sit for hours on end.

How Your Desk Job May Be Harming Your Health

This may be a wild guess, but if you’re reading this you’re most likely hunched over your desk (or phone). You landed here because you know your desk job can quite literally cause aches and pains in your lower back, wrists, and even result in headaches.

Long story short – our bodies suffer at the hands of our desk jobs. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do about it. Taking a few moments each day to stretch can improve our posture and mood – ultimately resulting in feeling better. Yoga is an ideal way to loosen tight muscles and address certain areas on the body that don’t get as much movement as they should when sitting all day.

The Best Yoga Flow For Desk Jobs

From breath work and grounding poses to Warrior II and balancing, we’ve prepared a simple, yet effective sequence of yoga poses to help you feel better after sitting all day at work. Hold each pose for 5-10 breaths. As with any exercise, listen to your body. No pose should be painful or uncomfortable. It’s all about finding that balance between effort and ease.

Balasana (Child’s Pose)

Start off in Child’s Pose. This shape not only lengthens the spine, but opens your hips and grounds you before setting an intention for your practice. From here, find your breath – breathe in and out through your nose.

How To Find The Pose: Come on your hands and knees and bring your toes to touch and knees wide as you move your hips toward heels. Walk your hands forward until your forehead comes to the mat or floor. If it’s comfortable, close your eyes.

Marjaryasana/Bitilasana (Cat/Cow Pose)

Cat/Cow Pose improves spine flexibility and stretches your back muscles. Perfect if you have to drive long commutes on top of sitting all day.

How To Find The Pose: From Child’s Pose, come onto your hands and knees making sure they’re shoulder and hip width apart. Inhale and press through your palms. Round your spine as you drop your head to find Cat Pose. On the exhale, drop your belly towards the floor, then lift your gaze and look up – coming into Cow Pose. Match breath to movement and cycle through 5-7 rounds of Cat/Cow.

Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog Pose)

Downward Facing Dog Pose provides a juicy stretch in all the right places. It improves circulation and helps release tension in the neck.

How To Find The Pose: Root down into your palms and begin raising your knees off the mat. Lift your hips and straighten your legs if possible. In your first Down Dog, pedal the feet to ease into the pose. Firm the outer arms and shoulder blades. Look back at your toes. Shake the head yes and no to release tension in the base of your skull.

Uttanasana (Standing Fold Pose)

This inversion pose is ideal to alleviate anxiety and reduce tension headaches. For beginners, make sure to bend your knees as much as you need to avoid pulling a muscle. Standing Fold Pose is known to help with digestion, as well as stretching your hamstrings.

How To Find The Pose: Root down into your palms and begin raising your knees off the mat. Lift your hips and straighten your legs if possible.

Tadasana (Tall Mountain Pose)

Tall Mountain is another key pose in any yoga flow. It’s in this shape that you’ll have to practice your drishti (focused gaze) to keep the mind and body still. This pose is beneficial if you’re working on your balance and helps lengthen your spine.

How To Find The Pose: Root into your feet and come all the way up until you’re standing with your arms overhead. Depending on how your body feels, you can stand with your feet together or hip-width distance apart.

Virabhadrasana II (Warrior II Pose)

Warrior II pays homage to the Hindu god, Shiva. This pose is a test of endurance and strength for any yogi because your legs are doing most of the work to hold yourself still while the core is engaged to stabilize the torso. Another benefit of Warrior II? It’s a beloved hip opener that is easily modified to be accessible for all levels of fitness.

How To Find The Pose: From Tall Mountain, step your right foot back and bring the edge of your foot in line with the short edge of your mat. Bend the left knee. Your hips should be open towards the right side of the room. Bring your arms into a T and look over your left hand, again finding your drishti. Repeat on the left side.

The Cooldown

After you’ve gone through the poses above, come onto your back and take a few deep breaths. Add in an additional twist by lifting your legs, bend at the knees, and let them fall to either side of you. You can use blankets, yoga blocks, or books to bring the floor up if your knees don’t quite touch it yet. After this, extend your arms by your sides, legs go long, and close your eyes as you find the best pose of all: Savasana.

A Little Yoga Goes A Long Way

Finding just 15-20 minutes a day to stretch your body has lifelong benefits – especially if you work a desk job. No matter if you have perfect posture or not, these yoga poses keep your mind-body connection intact and improve circulation. Practicing yoga is all about listening to what your body needs and that changes by the day.

Corporate Yoga: Practice Yoga With Your Coworkers

Not only do our bodies benefit from yoga, but our relationships can, too. There’s a certain kind of chemistry that happens between groups of people who practice yoga together. Bonds formed on your mat carry into the workplace and can improve communication within and between departments. Body Techniques provides both in-person and online yoga classes for workplaces with desk jobs just like yours. Learn more about our corporate yoga programs and why stress management is so important in corporate settings.

March 29, 2022March 29, 2022

5 Ways to Combat Zoom Fatigue

A change in workplace trends has taken place over the past two years of uncertainty and has left numerous people working from their homes instead of being in an office. In doing so, employees lost the ability to walk over to their coworkers to ask questions or just to have some friendly conversation. This workplace adjustment led to a rapid increase in virtual meetings, more popularly known as Zoom calls.

While the ability to communicate with employees who are potentially all over the world is extremely beneficial, it also has its downfalls—a major one being Zoom fatigue. Similar to feelings of burnout, Zoom fatigue refers to the exhaustion that comes from excessive virtual meetings. If you’re struggling to overcome Zoom fatigue, this is for you.

Come to Meetings Prepared to Focus

A large contributor to Zoom fatigue is the physical impact it can have on your eyes as most virtual meetings expect you to have complete focus on the video during the meeting. The blue light emissions from the screen can cause migraines, which only enhances Zoom fatigue by the end of the day. On top of this, long-term exposure to blue light can alter your circadian rhythm and negatively impact your sleep cycle. While you may spend most of your days in front of screens you simply cannot escape, comfortable blue light eyeglasses are a great option to help protect your eyes from your increased screen time. Wearing these glasses while you are in meetings, looking at your calendar, or simply looking at your phone can help reduce symptoms like blurry vision, dry eye, eyestrain, and more. Incorporating these glasses into your daily life may also positively impact your work/life routine and allow you to get a good night of sleep.

Creating the right environment is important when it comes to maintaining focus. With that in mind, we additionally recommend taking meetings in a designated workspace, making sure that the lighting of your room is optimal, and even wearing headphones to ensure you are in the right mindset for your meeting.

Turn Video off if it’s Not Mandatory

While some virtual meetings require your undivided, visible attention and presence, not all are this way. If possible, opt for turning your video off if it’s not necessary. It’s a small adjustment, but it can make a big impact. Having your camera on puts added pressure to look and act a certain way, which inevitably leads to those feelings of Zoom fatigue. Have you ever been in a meeting that you can’t seem to focus on because your brain is running through a daily to-do list? Take advantage of opportunities that you don’t need to have a camera on, and maximize your time if possible.

Rotate Who the Host is

Having to be the meeting host for every meeting can quickly become exhausting. As the host, the expectation is that you are “on” at all times and prepared for anything. While it may seem like it’s not that difficult of a task, it can take its toll by the end of the day. If you find that you’re ending calls feeling tense and listless, consider creating a rotation for who hosts the meetings. Best case scenario, you only have to host one meeting a day, or possibly even one a week.

Make Time to Decompress

Creating pockets of time to decompress throughout the day is essential to avoiding burnout. There are days that feel overwhelming and stressful with constant to-do lists forming and finding time to take a breath and step away from the computer screen can help immensely. From taking a walk during your lunch hour to meditating during breaks between meetings, scheduling time for yourself to level-set your feelings and stress levels can help make the daily grind more manageable.

When your days seem to never end with back-to-back meetings with no breaks in sight, it’s important to make time to decompress when you log off. Reducing your screen time after work hours can give your eyes and brain much-needed rest. Consider creating a meditation routine that can help you alleviate residual work-related stress, and if you find it usual for yourself, finding opportunities to meditate together with your coworkers may help foster self-care routines for them as well.

Institute a No Meeting Day

Structuring your week to include one meeting-free day can really help reduce Zoom fatigue. Limiting the days you have meetings will make those meetings you do have feel more important and create a sense of efficiency with each agenda you run through. These particular no-meeting days give you the opportunity to focus on complex assignments that require your undivided attention. Dedicating time to these tasks without the interruption of call after call can help you feel accomplished and can cross items off of your to-do list faster.

Choosing your meeting-free day is up to you; it could be a day in the middle of the week to give you a nice break, or it could be on Fridays to help end your week on a more relaxing note. Consider speaking about this with your boss or coworkers to see if a team-wide no-meeting day would be beneficial for everyone. Creating a work environment that ensures efficiency and wellness is important to the success of all.

Participating in Zoom calls takes a lot of effort. Being focused, looking presentable, and preparing for every meeting, sometimes at a moment’s notice, can take a great deal of mental strength. Virtual meetings are here to stay, so it’s important to implement a few of the strategies listed above and prevent the sometimes unavoidable, but incredibly manageable, Zoom fatigue.

March 17, 2022March 29, 2022

Employee Wellness Best Practices For Health Care Workers

Making mental health resources accessible for health care workers is no longer a desired benefit, but a necessity. As most doctors, hospital administrators, and patient care managers know – sound mental health requires a lot more work than the occasional day off of work. From maintaining healthy diets to company-sponsored massage, employee wellness is attainable with the right stress management program in place.

Read on to learn how implementing just a few employee wellness best practices around your healthcare facility can keep staff in the right state of mind to continue helping those in need.

How To Implement Stress Management Programs For Health Care Workers

When narrowing down employee wellness options consider asking your nurses, receptionists, hygienists, and administrators what they need in order to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Starting this conversation shows your employees that you see them as real people and not just a means to an end. This can be done in the form of an email survey or hosting a company meeting to get their feedback. Body Techniques has several options to help you implement wellness best practices specific to the healthcare industry. With our expertise, you can easily show gratitude to your employees.

Employee Wellness Ideas For Health Care Workers

We’re all too familiar with the saying, “Actions speak louder than words.” This also rings true for prioritizing employee wellness. Giving your faculty and staff guidelines for maintaining a healthy work-life balance equips them with different outlets to look and feel their best. As a result, they’re happier at work and more productive in their daily roles. Our clients tend to see the most success from their company-sponsored stress management program when it’s supported by additional mental health best practices:

Keep Healthy Snacks Around The Office Or Breakroom

While everyone loves a mental health donut every now and then, we all know that sugar is one of the worst things someone can consume when they’re having a bad day. Instead of surprising the office with sweets, try keeping fruits and/or vegetables around for your employees to snack on throughout the day. If this isn’t feasible for your medical practice, an engaging alternative could be hosting a monthly potluck where everyone brings in their favorite healthy dish. These events not only build morale amongst your staff, but equip their bodies with the right foods to power through each shift.

Create A Collaborative Work Playlist

Find the right tune and you’ll improve just about anyone’s mood. If your healthcare facility allows, create a playlist that employees can add their favorite work-appropriate songs to. If your practice doesn’t have speakers throughout the office, try adding a bluetooth speaker to your breakroom or employee lounge to help ground your staff when they need to take a break.

health care workers at a lunch and learn

Host Lunch & Learn Sessions

A huge part of employee wellness is nurturing growth. Host a quarterly lunch and learn session to keep staff members at the forefront of any updates either within their field, or something totally off the wall and fun!

female health care worker receiving a corporate massage with body techinques

Stress Less With Corporate Massage

Corporate massage is quickly becoming a must in terms of maintaining mental health for doctors, EMTs, nurses, practitioners, and really everyone who works in healthcare. Body Techniques has helped hundreds of medical practices empower their employees through corporate massage. The most successful? Roaming massage.

If you’re wondering to yourself, “What is a roaming massage?” It’s an all-encompassing solution for busy healthcare facilities (like hospitals and urgent care) that brings a much needed massage right to your staff. One of our certified massage therapists meets your nurses on their floors or stations and provides a chair massage. This is ideal for nurses who are sitting in front of their computers or need a mental health break after charting.

Encourage Balance, Not Burnout

Keeping your staff in the best mental state possible is essential to operate a successful medical practice. Body Techniques is here to help you turn the page when it comes to prioritizing employee wellness. By taking the time to hear what your staff is looking for in terms of work-life balance, you can create a custom program that meets their needs so they can, in turn, provide the highest quality of care to your patients.

Getting started is easy – talk to us today to learn the value of maintaining mental health at work.