Healthy Office: 5 Healthy Bytes to Create 1

It really can’t be healthy when you think about it.  Hours a day spent sitting in a chair, staring at a screen under poor lighting, sipping on nothing but the morning’s first cup of coffee.

Like many teams at many successful organizations, we love what we do.  Our love of all things IT is pretty pervasive across the board – we just can’t get enough!  So it really requires a group effort to remember that to have a healthy office, even the most-dedicated IT team in Michigan needs a break.  You may not be in IT, but I bet you know how it feels to forget to take a few moments to breathe during a busy day.  Now is when we enter:

“5 Healthy Bytes” – an Initiative to Create a Healthy Office:

1. Take a couple of deep, cleansing breaths.  The air-cleaning plants in each of our offices offer a great source of natural energy – freshly released oxygen.
2. Stand up and stretch out.  The health benefits of standing, even for short periods, are tremendous given the minimal effort required.  Stand-up desks or their after market counterparts (we use Varidesks) give you the opportunity to stretch your legs, keep your blood flowing, and engage your core while still being productive and getting things done!
3. Give your eyes a break.  Computer monitors, smartphones, tablets, TVs are all over in any office – or anywhere, really.  Look away from your screens every once in a while – consider it a visual vacation!  Don’t stay away too long!
4. Eat healthy, stay hydrated.  There’s nothing like walking in to our offices’ kitchens to see bright green apples, ripe yellow bananas, mounds of red grapes, and oranges the size of baseballs.  We always have access to filtered water and reusable water bottles (with lids to prevent computer damage from spills, of course!).  Benefits like weekly fresh fruit are awesome, but only when they’re used.  So remind your neighbor to grab a clementine, better yet, pay it forward and grab one for her!
5. Get moving! Make sure you have some activity planned in your calendar, every day, whether it’s a walk with a friend on your lunch break, or something quick like our newly enlisted Plank Break.  It’s 1 minute of afternoon time reserved to get up from your chair, get down on the ground, and get plankin’!  We’re still looking for a morning activity – suggestions are always welcome!