Treadmill Desk

For those of you that know me, I am a multi-tasker.

While in a meeting in a different building at work, I found two treadmill desks. How much I would love to have a treadmill desk at work. I could walk a ton and get so much done. A colleague said he had read an article about how standing at work is like running 10 marathons a year. I had to find it online.

Lately I have been struggling with sleeping on my side and my shoulders hurting in the middle of the night. The only way I have been able to get back to sleep was to stay on my back, or try sleeping on my stomach (a new feat for me)! It has made me start to think about how much I let my shoulders slump forward, or generally how I sit at my desk during the day. I have a high desk, so I can definitely work all day standing up, and yet I often do not. It is easier to sit, and then over time I realize that I am not sitting up straight, I am hunched over, and at the end of the day my shoulders, neck, and back hurt.

I am a competitive one, so if I started tracking how long I stood at my desk each day, and if the article is right, then I would be on track. Maybe not like truly running 10 marathons, but better for my health, better for my back, shoulders, and neck, and hopefully more focused on what I am working on. My problem? I am often not at my desk and usually in meetings throughout the day, so what does that mean for me? That whenever I am at my desk, I should stand? Maybe I should move my chair out of the way, so I know if I have given into the comfort of the hunch.

We are also on a mission for finally getting a king sized bed, so maybe a new mattress will help with the side sleeping dilemma, and standing all day will help my shoulders – and heck, as the article says burn 8 pounds of fat in a year.

What is the first thing you do when you come home from work? What do you do to decompress from the work day? I usually like to check in with my husband about his day and tell him things about my day. Then, I try to immediately go for my daily run. I can be completely exhausted mentally and physically and 99% of the time if I go for a run I get rejuvenated and can accomplish much more for the rest of my evening.

In my last job I worked from home and often felt like I needed to run double the amount because I was constantly on my laptop or on the phone and I wished I had the option to move around more during my day. I often felt tethered to my laptop. Fast forward to this article I read recently about a treadmill desk. If I had one of these when I was working from home, I could see myself working away, and run/walk at a slower than normal pace for a longer period of time to have the option to move while working. I think a lot of people (if you can handle the treadmill) would appreciate this type of multi-tasking. It would also mean that a lot of us are staying fit while juggling a lot of other responsibilities.

It is massive and not the most attractive of machines, but to me the ROI could be high. To think that maybe on those crazy days when you do not have time for a workout, but you are listening in on a conference call, or you need to read over proposals and the like that you could have stay fit in the process. It sounds like a win-win situation to me!

TGIF!! I am so very excited for the weekend and for time to rest and recoup from a full week. Have a wonderful weekend!