Health & Fitness: Five Reasons Why Yoga Is Perfect For Office Lifestyle

It’s a fact that our ancestors used to be more active than we are now. Only some 12,000 years ago, when our ancestors started agriculture, went hunting and were constantly changing places to live, they were already moving more than we do today.

Movement is the essence of our lives, but we seem to have forgotten it. We are too busy with work and household chores, that we only have enough energy to crawl our way to bed, turn on a TV and fall asleep while watching an evening entertainment program.

The less we move, the less productive we are at the workplace. 52% of employers said that lack of exercise is an issue for their workers, according to Willis Towers Watson, a UK-based advisory firm. This immensely impacts productivity, as the energy levels drop and stress levels rise. That is why we all need something that will nurture both our bodies and minds.

Yoga is a practice that has been in our world for over 5000 years. It’s proven to be a wonderful tool that shows a lot of health benefits, including balancing body and mind, as well as decreasing stress levels and keeping your body in a wonderful shape.

But as long as we’re talking about office work, let’s take a look at some reasons why yoga is perfect for office lifestyle.

1. Decreasing Stress: The American Institute of Stress claims that 80% of employees feel stress at work and don’t know how to deal with it and a whopping 42% of employees claim that they quit their jobs because of the overwhelming levels of stress.

In an office, we often have to deal with a lot of pressure, and yoga can help you deal with that. The breathing techniques that yoga practice involves helps you relax. Besides, doing yoga involves relaxing your mind and getting rid of any disturbing thoughts. So this is exactly what you need when you feel stressed at work: just do a little yoga during a break.

2. Better Sleep: Sleep deprivation can make stress levels even higher, as your energy levels are so low, it makes it impossible to fight stress. But lack of sleep can not only lower your ability to deal with stress, it has many other negative effects, like memory issues, weakened the immune system and even a risk of heart disease.

Yoga, like any other type of exercise, positively influences the quality of sleep. Doing yoga at least for 15 minutes during a lunch break will ensure that you’ll come back home and sleep like a baby.

3. Improved Posture: Sitting the whole day negatively impacts the way we sit, which consequently makes our posture worse. People who have a job that requires sitting the whole day and working with the computer, like professional essay writers, clerks and employees at government institutions often suffer from back pains, which is the result of sitting too much.

A set of yoga exercises which you can do right at your desk will help your back, bring your muscles in tonus and improve blood circulation. Yoga will also help you reduce discomfort while sitting. Yoga exercises also benefit flexibility of your body, making you look more confident.

4. Boosting Creativity: Yoga exercises help you get rid of stress, which immediately makes a positive impact on creativity. Yoga practices are aimed at freeing a mind of any constraints. So when you’re done with your yoga exercises, you’ll feel that you’re free of thoughts that did not allow you to think more creatively.

That’s why yoga is essential for those who need creativity every day while being at work. Yoga enables us to open our minds and think outside the box because this practice is aimed at making a body and a mind free.

5. Improving Focus: It’s amazing what 20 minutes of doing yoga at your office desk can do to your brain. A study published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health has proven that only 20 minutes of yoga can improve your focus and help you concentrate better.

A lot of stress factors at work, including overwhelming work-related tasks, office noise, and other issues, contribute to lowering the quality of performance. By letting it all go and spending 20 minutes doing yoga will not just make you calmer. It will positively influence your ability to focus and pay attention when you really need it.

Be Active! Make it your motto and your mindset. Don’t give yourself an excuse that you’re too busy to even spend a few minutes doing yoga at your work desk. Just give it a try: only 20 minutes of your lunch break time will make a huge difference.

And your body will definitely be grateful because you’ll give it a chance to recharge. Besides, you’ll definitely enjoy it, as it’s a nice way to get your body and mind distracted in a good way.

Author’s Bio: Tom Jager is professional blogger. He works at A-writer. He has degree in Law and English literature. Tom has written numerous articles/online journals. You can reach him at G+ or  Facebook.