How exercise and 10,000 steps can better your workday

The mind-body connection is a well-established fact. Mind-enhancing activities, such as meditation can influence all sorts of physical parameters — body temperature, heart rate and even the gut microbiome! Physical activity has similar salutary effects on the brain—helping with mood, stress reduction and decision-making. The so-called “runner’s high” is a familiar mood-enhancing benefit of the hard work of lacing up your shoes and going for a run.

How is this even relevant to your career? First, a short detour into the basics of neuroscience. Dr Jennifer Heisz, Assistant Professor in Kinesiology at McMaster University, Canada researches the impact of regular exercise on brain health. She has demonstrated that moderate intensity and regular activity significantly improved brain function, leading to better performance on tasks such as decision-making and problem-solving. Exercise has been found to increase blood flow to the brain, which can lead to the growth of new brain cells and the strengthening of existing connections.

A neurochemical called neuropeptide Y (NPY) is released immediately after moderate exercise, strengthening stress resistance and resilience. This anxiety relief and mood boost happens immediately after exercising and lasts for about 30 minutes afterwards. Unfortunately, these wonderful impacts don’t last—therefore consistency is the key.

A second area of impact is on the stress response, a balancing act between the sympathetic nervous system (regulating fight v/s flight) and the parasympathetic nervous system (regulating relaxation). An imbalance between the two systems causes stress and anxiety. When we exercise, we continuously activate the sympathetic nervous system. When we stop, we activate the parasympathetic system.

This repeated stress and rest cycle helps strengthen the relaxation response. Eventually, when we experience a stressful situation in our life and career, it will activate the sympathetic nervous system but our parasympathetic nervous system will be really strong and better able to engage so that we stay calmer and less reactive.

This is the theory. Let’s look at the practical side. We know that stress and poor mood can negatively impact job performance. By reducing stress and improving mood, exercise can help individuals to stay motivated and engaged in their work. Another huge, interlinked factor is exercise’s effects on sleep. Poor sleep has been linked to a range of negative outcomes, including difficulty concentrating, poor memory, and a reduced ability to handle stress (yet again). By improving sleep, exercise can help individuals to be more alert and focused, leading to better performance at work.

There is a positive effect on creativity as well. Switching contexts from a sitting down and focused mode to moving, keeps the brain engaged and creates new synaptic connections. Sometimes our best ideas come when we are not at our desks, but are on a walk or engaged in some other physical activity.

Squeezing in exercises

However, you may be sitting all day with very little movement. Between Zoom calls, meetings with colleagues, and responding to emails and chat messages—when do you squeeze in that workout?

Let’s look at a few tricks. In order to perform a habitual task, three things need to happen — a trigger to remind us, the actual activity and a reward to satiate our craving mind.

Set yourself a timer to remind you to get up. The Pomodoro technique of working for twenty-five minutes and taking a five-minute break is a fantastic mechanism for triggering your new habit. Set an alarm to buzz in twenty-five minutes. Resist the urge to look at WhatsApp and instead do a few squats or push-ups.

If you work in an office and want to avoid strange looks, walk up and down the stairs to get in your exercise. Give yourself a mental high-five as a reward. That subtle movement from sitting to standing and then moving a little bit is enough to help increase brain blood flow, especially to the prefrontal cortex, which governs the focused attention that we need to avoid distraction.

Park your vehicle in the farthest parking spot and walk as much as you possibly can. Plan walking meetings with colleagues. Exercise in groups adds social benefits—people who exercise in groups have better health benefits than those who go it alone. Obviously, if you can get to a gym or park to work out, that is best. Make the habit obvious by laying your clothes out the night before.

Remember that every bit counts. Research shows that with aerobic exercise, every ten minutes of activity nets a boost in mood for up to one hour. When it comes to resistance exercises like weight lifting or yoga, Tai chi, the more intensive the weights or the resistance, the bigger the benefit. But be patient. The goal isn’t to reach some magical end-point. It is to acquire a new identity as an active and dynamic individual.

(The author is a social entrepreneur who strives to get his 10,000 steps and wall-sits, even on the busiest workday.)