Corporate wellness Archives

June 23, 2022 By Parwage Alam 3 Comments

How Sitting For Long Hours Can Shorten Your Life

You might have often heard people say, “Sitting is Killing Me”. This phrase seems to be spoken lot more these days thanks to the busy schedules that people have. I believe that 75% of people work desk jobs which require them to be seated on their chair for at least 8 to 10 hours a day, if not more. No wonder that most corporate employees complain about aches and pains.

Sitting for long hours can be as dangerous for your body as smoking. Most people sit at their work stations and have no other activity apart from staring into their computers. On an average, 10 hours a day is spent at the work desk as compared to 7 hours of sleeping. Sitting is so prevalent and so pervasive that we don’t even question how much we’re doing it.

Excessive sitting, defined as nine to 10 hours a day, has been called a lethal activity. Dry eyes? Your eyes are not designed to keep focusing and moving repetitively across a computer screen. Weight gain? Sitting jobs are mostly stressful and when you are stressed out, your body is flooded with Cortisol, a stress hormone, which makes you crave for carbohydrates, sugar and fatty foods. You might not realize this being parked at a desk but all this goes into your body.

A sitting Job leads you towards a shorter life. Sitting down the whole day doubles the risk of diabetes and heart attack. Some research shows difference in health outcomes between the most and least sedentary workers. Those who spent the most time sitting down had a greater risk of diabetes. Risk of cardiovascular problems such as heart attack or stroke increased in the most sedentary workers.

How Sitting For Long Hours Can Affect Your Health

Sitting for long hours in a similar sitting position affects the blood circulation of body
Increased risk of diabetes and heart disease
Causes eye strain
Causes tiredness in the back and neck muscles
Reduces efficiency of heart and lungs
Leads to back and joint pains
Responsible for digestive problems

How Can You Stay Active At Your Workplace?

Take small breaks and frequent breaks
Avoid the elevator and use the stairs
Go for a short walk post eating your lunch
Rinse your eyes with water when you take a break
Try some neck exercises by moving your neck forward or backward
Change your sitting positions frequently
Adjust your chair correctly to improve posture and sit comfortably
Try some simple office workouts

We hope this article helps you understand how sitting for long hours can impact your health. Try to avoid it by taking short breaks and being active! If you experience any pain, here’s what you can do to avoid any further injuries: https://goqii.com/blog/prevent-injuries-at-work/

For more tips on living a healthier lifestyle, check out Healthy Reads. You can also get more tips for staying active directly from a GOQii Coach by subscribing for Personalized Health Coaching here: https://goqiiapp.page.link/bsr

#BeTheForce

December 13, 2021 By GOQii Leave a Comment

Benefits Of Participating In The GOQii Corporate Challenge

We have already spoken about why Corporations need to Reimagine Corporate Wellness to improve health, build team spirit and morale after their employees have spent months working from home.

The GOQii Corporate Challenge, a 60 day inter-corporate challenge, where corporations can get their employees to participate on an individual, team and corporate level, can certainly ensure employee engagement and help them bond, beyond work, over a mutual goal.

How Can The GOQii Corporate Challenge Benefit A Corporation?

As the challenge consists of a 30 day steps challenge, daily social media spot challenges as well as daily workout, meditation and health talk sessions, it can impact your employees and business in more ways than one!

Individual Benefits: As your employees participate in the challenge, they will begin to form certain healthy habits like taking frequent walks (walking being the best form of exercise), eating right and meditating to name a few. Forming these healthy habits will help them focus better and remain stress-free. With guidance from our certified experts, they can form healthy habits which will reflect in their work as well.
Team Benefits: A healthy competition never hurts anybody! You won’t just be competing against other corporates but even within your own teams for prizes. This can help your employees motivate each other to complete steps, participate in spot challenges and claim rewards, building team spirit, coordination and morale – something that will positively impact their professional lives as well.
Organization Benefits: As a whole, healthier employees means less absenteeism which in turn means more productivity! This challenge will also help you reduce cost to the company as the entire challenge is online and there needs to be no additional costs for external trainers or booking an off-site location for an event. With GOQii’s tech and certified trainers, you can get healthier right where you are!

Currently, we have approximately 20k+ employees over 25 organizations such as Bajaj Allianz, HDFC Life, Wipro, Philips Lighting, Times Group, Tata Sky, Max Bupa, HPCL, Indus Towers and more that have signed up for the GOQii Corporate Challenge. Sign up your organization now and know more about this inter-corporate challenge by visiting: https://gcc.goqii.com/

Registrations open today!

#BeTheForce

December 8, 2021 By GOQii Leave a Comment

Increase Productivity At Work & Improve Health With This New Challenge

How was your experience working from home? While it did seem like a good break, the unexpected shift of remote working presented some issues that were difficult to deal with. Along with maiming profits, delayed appraisals, curbed salaries, increase in time spent doing work and disrupting respective corporate cultures, COVID-19 also impacted employees in ways they didn’t bargain for.

Problems Faced While Working From Home

Detachment & Isolation: Whichever industry you work in, a workplace gives you a sense of shared purpose and connection. With lesser opportunities of bonding and interaction while working from home, team members began to feel more isolated and disengaged from their workplace. No amount of video conferences can fix this feeling of detachment and isolation.
Loss of Focus: While some enjoyed an isolated space where they could concentrate on their work, most didn’t have a remote space they could comfortably work from. Distraction by family members, pets and other factors caused more stress and lack of focus.
Mental Health Issues: Given the state of affairs during the early onset of the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, it was easy to get stressed about the future. Feelings of fear, anxiety, sadness and frustration were common across all age groups. Working from home made it difficult to reach out to colleagues and friends for support. In a study we conducted, we found that around 43% Indians were plagued with depression. A number that only saw an upward trend. “Anxiety is one of the symptoms of depression. Most people are anxious on various counts. For some it is about not having a regular routine as they did in normal times,” says Divya Thampi, an Emotional Wellness Coach on GOQii Play. To read more about the impact of COVID-19 on mental health, read the report here.
Overwhelmed With New Tech: We already use a significant amount of apps and softwares daily. In the business landscape, everything is driven by data and tech. Adaptability aside, the sudden onset of the pandemic and the subsequent remote working scene forced us to work with new tools for scheduling, conferencing, managing, etc. faster than before.
Feedback, Recognition & Guidance: During pre-lockdown times, it was easy for a manager to step up to your desk to share positive feedback or guide you. In a remote working environment, this form of interaction has suffered greatly. Lack of feedback, recognition and guidance can make one feel further isolated, doubt their skills or lose confidence in their work.
Health & Wellbeing: Disruption of routine also meant that people were tied down to their couches, beds or desks at home with little movement. Those walks after lunch, chasing trains and any little movement we had while we worked from the office were tossed out the window. Eating habits also suffered and with work hours extending for some, sleep suffered greatly – only adding to stress.

At GOQii, we believe that a healthy employee is a happy employee and a happy employee is a productive employee. Sadly, that was not the case during the lockdown. In view of these issues which are quite persistent even now, what can corporations do to motivate their employees, build team spirit, foster bonding, improve health and increase productivity?

GOQii Corporate Challenge

What if we told you that there was a fun way to build team spirit, improve health and performance at work? The GOQii Corporate Challenge – an inter-corporate health challenge, can be the solution you’ve been looking for.

It’s a 60 day engagement program, starting from 13th December to 10th February, where corporates can get their employees to participate on an individual, team and corporate level. The challenges will consist of a 30 day steps challenge and daily social media spot challenges (where you can win daily prizes) – all tracked by a live leaderboard.

The program also consists of daily fitness sessions i.e. 150+ sessions in 60 days starting with Yoga, Mind and Body sessions at 7 AM, Health Talks at 3 PM and High Intensity Workout sessions at 7 PM.

What’s more, at the end of the GOQii Corporate Challenge, 1 in every 4 players stands a chance to win exciting prizes such as hotel stays, luxury watches, smartphones, gadgets and exclusive merchandise.

A little bit of healthy competition like this, can definitely ease the strain left by COVID-19 and build team spirit while most of us return to the office!

If you’re keen on participating, sign up your corporation for the GOQii Corporate Challenge to take advantage of exciting rewards – the best one being good health!

#BeTheForce