Office-workers are being urged to get up and walk around after an occupational-health study found that the typical ‘desk monkey’ spends almost six hours a day sitting down.
Researchers from the Work & Health Research Centre at Loughborough University found that in a typical working week, people spend on average five hours and 41 minutes a day sitting at their desk, and seven hours sleeping at night.
Presenting their findings at a British Psychological Society conference last week Dr Myanna Duncan, Mr Aadil Kazi and Professor Cheryl Haslam warned that prolonged sitting at a desk is not only bad for physical health but potentially also for mental well-being.
Nearly 70 per cent of employees surveyed did not meet recommended guidelines for physical activity, while 50 per cent of those aged 50 years and under failed to meet these guidelines. The findings also showed that those who sit for longer at work are more likely to sit outside of work, and that there is a correlation between BMI scores and sitting time at work.
The findings are a subset of a larger study that looked at employees’ experiences of occupational health provision over an 18-month period between 2009 and 2011. The psychologists measured employees’ use and experiences of occupational health services and their physical activity levels. Interviews and focus groups with occupational health professionals were also conducted.
Said Dr Myanna Duncan: “People don’t need a psychologist to tell them to get up and walk around. But if it helps, I’d tell them to put a sticky note on their computer to remind them. G and talk to your colleagues face to face – it’s a lot more sociable and better for you than e-mailing them.”
In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.
We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.
