Office exercises you can do at your desk

We sit at our desks all day long and often we feel how our legs go numb, our back gets bent and your neck is hurting. To feel comfortable and increase your work productivity you should do some light exercises in your office. You don’t need any special equipment.

Take a break to get rid of the muscle tensions

The longer you stay on a chair, regardless how comfortable it is, the more muscle tension you will accumulate and increase. Pretty soon you will feel the consequences if you don’t do anything about it. You won’t feel good and your productivity will drop significantly. After a couple of hours of sitting in the same chair you will become more distracted and get head, neck, back, leg, shoulder pains. Every 2 -3 hours you can take a short break and stretch your muscles a little. You don’t even have to get your butt out of the chair to do it. Or you can get up for better results. Get the blood flowing. If you have access to a more secluded area, go there. Just one minute of movement will do you good. If you have tired eyes you can close them ,count to 5 and open them up. Do this several times.

Stretch your legs. You can stretch your right hand and touch the tip of your left leg, and then you do the same with the left arm and right leg. Do this several times. Also you can run standing still, lifting your knees as high as possible for 1 minute. Jump on one leg then the other and then on both. Forget the elevator. Use the stairs every time you have the occasion. If you don’t have any occasions to use the stairs create one.

If you feel the others from the office might consider you a little freaky take a stroll. Go to the nearby coffee shop. Use your imagination to find ways to be active and move a little during your working hours.

If you have to stay at your desk all day long then you can lift your hands above your head and keep them there for 30 seconds. At the end push your hands toward your back a couple of times.

Tension builds up fast into your neck. You can move it side to side and rotate it. Put your fingers on your shoulders and pull your shoulders back. Do not lift your fingers form your shoulders and repeat the movement several times. If you want to stretch your legs you don’t even have to get off your chair. Just lift them up a couple of inches from the ground and keep that position for a few seconds. Put your legs on the ground and repeat the movement again. The easier version of this exercise is to lift just one leg at a time. Keep your legs fully extended while lifting them up.

Rotate your wrists in both directions. To relax rotate your head several times in both directions slowly.

When you finish the light office workout you should breath in deeply a couple of times and you are good for another 2-3 hours of productive work.

For more information you can read Office stretching to get the blood moving.