Health and safety at work are often neglected areas. We should know better than turn a blind eye to them, as this video from Essential Health and Safety demonstrates.
I came across this video through Learning English Matters.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions about it. The activity is suitable for intermediate students.
Office Posture Matters: An Animated Guide from Flikli on Vimeo.
1 Name at least two health-related problems derived from unhealthy postures.
2 What does 54% refer to?
3 What are the three basic pieces of advice given about how to sit?
4 What do you have to do after 30 minutes?
5 Name at least two activities you can do to get moving in the office.
6 How can you promote your well-being and boost your energy levels?
To check your answers you can read the transcript below.
Throughout the course of history, humans have spent a lot of time sitting.
Now, more and more, we find ourselves sitting, which is not necessarily a good thing.
Today, office workers spend hours slouched over and hunched into chairs, moving minimally.
Even after finishing work, we continue our everyday lives on the couch, that’s if we are even able to continue on at all, despite the spinal, body weight related and cardiovascular problems caused by unhealthy postures.
It’s been shown that people with sitting jobs have twice the rate of cardiovascular disease as people with standing jobs.
In fact, a recent medical journal study showed that people, who sit for most of their day, are 54% more likely to die of a heart attack.
Even if you dedicate a lot of time to staying fit, the time you spend sitting is still far greater than what is healthy for your body.
Even 1 hour of daily sports can’t compensate for 11 hour sitting sprees, so what can you do?
Paying attention to your posture is the real key to a healthier life in the office.
Now this doesn’t mean forcing your spine into a rigid upright position in whatever chair you are sitting in. This may actually create more stress of your vertebrae.
It’s important to know some basics about good sitting posture before you adjust yourself.
First, you need to support your back.
Then make sure your feet are comfortably rested. Try not to cross your legs, that can restrict circulation.
Finally, keep you monitor at arm’s length away at eye level
This way you will avoid having to hunch over and crane your neck unnaturally.
Even rocking back and forth in your chair can help, and recent research has shown that this minor act of balancing boosts your ability to concentrate.
To get yourself in better shape at the office, you’ll need to interrupt your sitting at least once every 30 minutes.
You don’t even need to do gym exercises to get moving. Get up and do some simple lunges, calf phrases, and shoulder shrugs, to loosen up your joints, relieve tension and stretch your muscles.
Take advantage of every chance you have to move your body.
One day, what we think of work will be completely different, and the workplace may well be a far ergonomic and active place for your body.
But until then, you can promote your wellbeing and boost your energy levels by simply paying more attention to your body during the workday.
