Advent Calendar Day 13 – Survive The Desk – Organise The Office Mexican Wave

It is that time of the year… the Christmas holiday is looming and the end of year deadlines are becoming more urgent. It’s a time when everyone is putting you under pressure to get things wrapped up for the year and you feel like you are chained to your desk.

Too many hours sitting at your desk can have some negative effects on your health. Obviously, the more time you spend at your desk, the less time you spend moving, but what can also have an impact on you is how you sit. The longer you are working at your computer and the more stressed and tired you get, the worse your working posture seems to get. Your shoulders rise to your ears and your head drops forward. This not only puts pressure on the shoulders and neck, it changes our breathing patterns and can affect your resting heart rate and blood pressure.

What to do about it?
Obviously, it makes sense to have your desk ergonomically set up for you but even then, when you are tired your posture will slip. So, make sure that you get up and out of your desk on a regular basis. That is the first thing to do, but we all know that when we are busy this does not always happen. This next option is easy and takes no time, so there is no excuse not to do it. This will work if you work on your own, but if you happen to work in an open plan office you can get all your colleagues to join in and you can have a little fun with it.

The Office Mexican Wave

So, set an alarm to go off every 10 to 15 minutes. When the alarm goes off:

1. Sit upright in your chair
2. Lift both arms directly above your head and reach up to the ceiling
3. Holding the upper body and head in that position, bring your hands back down to your keyboard and try and maintain that posture for as long as possible.
4. Reset the timer and get your colleagues to join you for the office Mexican wave!