5 Heart-Healthy Habits for Your Work Day

Next month is American Heart Month! At Team Wellbeats, we’re all about finding non-conventional ways to get exercise in and move more throughout the day… even at work! Here’s 5 Heart-Healthy Habits to try!

Because of our strong mission to provide fitness that fits in any lifestyle, we wanted to share 5 different ways to get a jumpstart on moving more – so your heart can reap the benefits <3

Here are 5 heart-healthy habits you can start making at work right now:

Take the stairs.Before you roll your eyes, consider this: studies have shown that stair climbing, which is considered a high-intensity physical activity, can burn more calories per minute than jogging!*

Heart-Healthy Habit: Challenge yourself to only take the stairs every morning. If your office does not include stairs, try 1 minute of high-knees for a similar effect.

Play a Wellbeats Office Break 1-2X a day.Not sure what an “Office Break” entails? This is a channel featured on Wellbeats that includes 1-8 minute exercises that can be done right at your desk when you’re feeling burnt out or fatigued – with options like chair yoga, boosting creativity, and clearing your mind.

Heart-Healthy Habit: During midmorning or midafternoon between meetings, play 1 quick Wellbeats Office Break right at your desk. Bonus: encourage an employee to participate with you!

Stand up when you work! No standing desk? No problem. There are several DIY ideas, including simply stacking a set of board games or books like the ones shown here.

Heart-Healthy Habit: Start you work day standing using a stack of books. Stand for as long as you can – but give yourself permission to sit as needed.

Carve out 20 minutes during your lunch hour to move.Whether it’s going up and down the stairs again, walking outside, or even taking a quick Wellbeats workout, there are plenty of short but effective options to get up and move.

Heart-Healthy Habit: Before diving into your lunch, take 20 minutes to move around the office in some way. Your lunch will still be waiting for you when you return – and can serve as a nice reward.

Practice mindfulness.While this may seem like an odd choice to promote a healthy heart, reducing stress with a mindfulness practice can play a signifcant role in reducing heart-related problems. You can practice mindfulness on Wellbeats by taking classes like “Breathing Meditation”, “Dealing with Stress”, and “Monday Morning Blues”.

Heart-Healthy Habit: Whenever you feel a sense of overwhelming stress at work, make it your mission to spend as little as 7 minutes practicing the Wellbeats Breathing Meditation class to calm your nerves and lessen any anxiety or stress.

So there you have it – 5 different ways you can start incorporating throughout your work day right now to support a healthy heart. Let us know which habit(s) you plan to make throughout the remainder of January leading into American Heart Month by sharing a comment below or sharing on social media using #Wellbeats.

-The Wellbeats Team

P.s. Throughout the month of February we will be giving away free swag – all you have to do is post a workout wearing red and include the hashtag #Wellbeats on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Make sure your post is set to “public” so we can see it 🙂

*Statistic featured in Very Well: https://www.verywellhealth.com/reasons-to-take-the-stairs-2509609