Physical fitness may seem an odd choice on a blog about gauging employee sentiment and strategies to bolster the workplace in fostering higher performance, but you might be surprised to know a few pushups here, squats there, and a long walk can do more than just sculpt your body, but act as catalysts towards increased work productivity and performance.
A few years ago, we saw our lives change during lockdown. Movie theaters shut down, friends' places where we would hang out were on hiatus, and the gym also became obsolete. Although the mental health woes only exacerbated themselves during covid-19, when the gyms closed down that left a lot of people without motivation to work out. People reported since the lockdown an increase in weight gain and increased mental health woes due to a lack of physical exercise.
While these things are a natural outgrowth from the pandemic that may have been inevitable and varying depending on people’s personal circumstances, they are simply measures and not value judgements on people who experienced the above woes. What we need to look at though, is that poor mental health and feeling lethargic lead to burnout in the workforce, which has been explored in a recent article here at Worksense.
In today’s landscape, both offline and digitally, exercise has become somewhat of an ugly duckling as it concerns the level of care people have for it. Despite the fact that people are investing heavily in mental health services, the World Health Organization (WHO) found that over 30 percent of adults in the world are physically inactive. Some of this can be blamed on the current state of fitness marketing. Social media has allowed many influencers to weaponize physical exercise where content is fixated on unhealthy aesthetic goals and making viewers feel like their routines just aren’t enough. So even though a lot of people inherently know that exercise is one of the major benefits you can do for your health, the world around it can make it difficult to take it up seriously.
Of course there are a multitude of other reasons people can’t get to working out, and there is nothing but understanding for those reasons. But for those who may be on the fence about it, we need to encourage our employees especially to incorporate some level of exercise into their daily lives due to the real amenities exercise offers that includes the holistic and natural jumpstarter it can have on your mood, energy, confidence and resilience. Of course exercise is just one piece in a composite wellness regimen.
But with that said, let’s go through some of the benefits getting up and moving a little will have on your work, and we’ll even throw in a little bonus routine you can do anywhere without any equipment. Now drop down and give me 20! Just kidding...
It’s true. In one study cited by Harvard Medical School’s blog in 2017, saw that a group of “chronically sleep deprived” college students using 10 minutes of stair climbing yielded greater energy levels than a cup of coffee.
Now of course, if you had to choose between ten minutes of going up stairs versus downing a cup of coffee on the way to work the answer seems obvious.
But the point is, energy is criminally underrated when it comes to the role it plays in a working person’s day. It’s why 77% of people who drink coffee need two cups a day just to “feel productive.” While coffee is not inherently bad for anyone, the fact is people's reliance on it shows how embedded we are to feeling good/energized in order to perform at all, let alone well.
This isn’t a shot at coffee by the way, no pun intended. But rather the role energy plays in your work day; energy is infectious, on the lower end of it, it can spread across teams leading to low motivation ending in poor performance. On the opposite end of the spectrum, high energy leads to greater employee engagement, enthusiasm and passion.
The actual science behind exercise effect on energy levels has been detailed extensively, but primarily mitochondria, known as the undisputed champion of cells, begin to multiply in your muscle cells whenever you exert yourself, leading to a greater energy supply. Bet your dark roast can't do that. Okay no more on coffee.
Therefore as company leaders, it's imperative to initiate ways to make fitness a part of the workplace. As mentioned before, physical activity is unfortunately tainted for the reasons said above, but providing incentives, making exercise fun, and promoting its importance in a fun way can lead to team members adopting these practices.
But if they don’t listen to you they might Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine said, who said “walking is man’s best medicine.” So go ahead, take a hike!
In the 2011 movie Limitless, Bradley Cooper’s character is a struggling writer who gets introduced to a drug that drastically improves his cognitive faculties that eventually lead him into enormous success. The scene where he first takes the pill is brilliantly shot as the lighting goes from this pale, overcast gray into a bright, sepia-toned palette indicating his heightened abilities. Only issue is, kind of like coffee (sorry, last one), Cooper experiences crashing and burnout once his supply runs out.
If only there was a pill we could take as well in the workplace that could help us better do our tasks, specifically cognitive-based tasks. Many teams deal with a variety of cognitive tasks throughout the work day that include analyzing data, planning an agenda, communicating to team members and much more. Many times finding solutions to these tasks can seem daunting or downright elusive. If only there were something you could take to make this all easier.
Physical exercise actually is one of many, but very potent, pills, for improved cognition. If you don’t believe us, you may believe the acclaimed Stanford neuroscientist Dr. Huberman, who has said that people can knock out cognitive tasks quicker and more accurately when performing 15 minutes of just moderate exercise before “engaging” in this type of work. This occurs because the energy boost from exercise on how you feel leads to better performing cognitive work that requires high focus levels. Dr. Huberman adds this type of intervention can even trump meditation as an option before cognitive-heavy work.
But what exactly entails ‘high-cognitive demanding’ tasks? You may be wondering, can exercise actually help me with something like creative work? In fact it may.
Dr. Chong Chen, a neuroscientist from Yamaguchi University in Japan, saw that miniscule amount of aerobic exercise such as - you guessed it - climbing a few flights of stairs can ‘ignite creative thinking.’ Creative thinking, according to Dr. Chen, entails coming up with ideas and assessing among a given set of ideas which of them are best to pursue.
While you may think creative thinking falls under the jurisdiction of artists, the number of solutions, i.e. ideas, doctors, product managers, HR leaders have to come up with on a daily basis are staggering. The amount of adaptability team leaders and members need must be at a competent level.
In regards to this, Dr. Rhonda Patrick, host of the world-renowned FoundMyFitness podcast , has said that vigorous exercise - sorry not a walk in the park for this one - increases ‘neuroplasticity’ in the brain; a fancy term that basically means the brain’s ability to adapt to new information.
This doesn’t mean you need to throw out the whiteboard with your workflow written on it, and instead take your team on a walk expecting the answers to fall into your hands, but consider exercise as another important arrow in your quiver to better increase your cognitive abilities in increasing productivity and engagement.
Now let us end with saying physical exercise is just another tool, an option, in increasing employee engagement and performance in the workplace. Most of the studies cited acknowledge this as well and are ever-changing and adapting to the times.
Needless to say however, we cannot ignore the importance that physical exercise and fitness has on your teams. It can truly be, based on the information above, a legitimate add-on into your company culture that has major benefits.
For everyone on the fence or who feels nervous about exercising, remember everything is adjustable to your own personal level. Can’t run? Try walking. Can’t walk? Try marching. Can’t do push ups? Try them on your knees. Don’t see exercise as a task or a chore. See it as a catalyst, a friend who can pick up your mood. Just give it a try, it will only do good, and that’s one guarantee we can make.
And once you’re done with your workout and had your post-workout shake, consider Worksense as a possible way to ‘workout’ any kinks you may have with employee engagement.