One of the difficulties of remote work today is finding the time and motivation to do physical activities like work from home exercises. A combination of stress, anxiety over current events, and general apathy has negatively affected our physical and mental health today.
Despite what some of you may think, you don’t need a lot of free time nor a large room to do work from home exercises. All you need for your early morning workout is a big enough room for you to move freely on and the commitment to do them. There are also several fitness apps you can use to help you find your personal routine.
To help motivate you to exercise, I will discuss the importance of exercise while working from home. Aside from its obvious physical benefits, exercising provides psychological benefits such as reducing stress and anxiety levels and improving your cognitive and judgment skills.
1. Work from Home Exercises Helps Keep You in Shape.
I know, big surprise, right? Keeping your body in shape is the most evident benefit of doing work from home exercises. And no, before you even say it, being round is not the shape I’m talking about. Keeping your body in shape improves your resistance to both fatigue and sickness. This is especially important today, despite the recent decrease in Covid cases.
Some of you may ask: “Why do I need to exercise and keep myself healthy if I’m just gonna stay at home anyways?” Well, there’s your reason to do so. Because you’re not moving around as much anymore, your body may weaken as a result. Exercising helps keep both your heart and lungs in tip-top shape and prevents obesity.
Obesity deserves further attention, as sitting around all day on your computer while eating an unbalanced diet increases your risk of becoming obese. You can avoid this by regularly exercising and eating a balanced diet. Sure, we’re not aiming at a bodybuilder’s appearance. But it wouldn’t hurt to look your best when we can finally go outside again, right?
2. Exercising Helps you Destress and Avoid Anxiety.
Another benefit of exercising is that it helps you avoid anxiety and improves your mental health. Conducting physical activities produces beneficial neurotransmitters in your brain. These neurotransmitters help decrease feelings of anxiety and depression. Exercising also gives you a sense that you’re once again in control of your life, that you’re steering it in the right direction.
In addition to helping you avoid anxiety, exercising also allows you to destress and help you focus on work. Starting your day with an early morning workout helps set your mind on what goals you need to accomplish for the day. If you’re not a morning person like me, exercising in the afternoon is a great way to relax and unwind after a day of work.
3. A Good Workout Helps you Better Sleep at Night.
An unhealthy side-effect of remote working is that it causes sleep issues. Speaking from experience, it’s not fun to work while having little sleep the previous night. It took some time, and many nights with little sleep, for me to finally adjust to my new schedule.
One way you can help solve this is by exercising after work. Exercising helps release all the remaining excess energy you may still have after work, making it easier for you to fall asleep at night. Another positive effect of exercising before going to sleep is it actually improves your sleep quality as well.
4. Exercising Improves your Cognitive and Judgement Skills.
Aside from improving your body, another benefit of exercising is also improving your cognitive and judgment skills. When exercising, your body isn’t the only thing that’s being affected. Your mind is also being honed as well. Exercising improves your ability to concentrate on your tasks and helps you make better decisions.
This is highly beneficial for remote workers. As they need to be capable of working with minimal supervision and making quick decisions. According to one study, exercising also improves your reaction time as well. All these benefits enable you to be more productive at your work. Who says you can’t improve your mind and body at the same time?
5. Work from Home Exercises Helps you Establish New Routines.
Another downside of remote work is the sudden lack of structure in your daily routine. Similar to your work, Exercising is also a commitment. You can’t just do it once or twice and expect to see improvements. You will have to put effort into it if you want to see results.
Following your own exercise routine alongside your work can help you form new habits for remote work. For example, before you start your shift for your online job, you can do your early morning workout. Doing this conditions your body to be more active in the morning, allowing you to focus on your tasks and finish them early.
6. Exercises Helps Brain Cell Growth.
And finally, one of the most significant benefits of exercising, aside from improving your physical health, is improving your brain’s health as well. Some exercises, such as running and meditation, help in your brain’s ability to grow new brain cells, specifically in the hippocampus. This process is called neurogenesis, and it replaces old brain cells with new, healthy ones.
Why is this so important, you may ask? The hippocampus region of the brain is responsible for a person’s ability to learn and remember information. This is especially important today. As the ever-changing demands of a remote work setup require an adaptive and sharp mind.
Conclusion.
And we are finished! Here are the reasons why you should be doing work from home exercises. Yes, I know that we all have plenty of stuff on our plates right now. But sparing at least a few minutes for exercising every day will help you greatly in the long run.
Your workout routine does not need to be complicated nor lengthy. It could be as simple as running exercises or yoga if that is what you want. As long as you are willing to stick to your workout routine, you are already on the path to improving yourself.
