An individual’s professional career is usually the priority and this is completely understandable. However, did you know that physical activity has, among its many benefits, the ability to increase your performance at work?
Indeed, several studies show that physical activity improves mental health (Etnier, Drollette, et al. 2019) and thus, would increase your cognitive abilities when you work. In addition, physical activity has the ability to significantly reduce your daily stress. That is, in the long term, physical activity activates the parasympathetic nervous system (relaxation effect), decreases nervous tension, has an anxiolytic effect (relaxing) and provides an antidepressant effect (energizing) (Poirel, 2017).
That being said, physical activity is also the most affordable way to prevent many diseases. For example, working out improves metabolic syndrome (Earnest, 2014), which is a condition in which an individual would be at risk of developing several diseases, such as type II diabetes or coronary heart disease. Metabolic syndrome is caused by several risk factors, such as abdominal obesity, high triglyceride levels, high LDL cholesterol versus low HDL cholesterol, hypertension and insulin resistance (Lackie, 2010). However, with physical activity, these risk factors are all modifiable. This means that working out fights type II diabetes (Sanz, 2010) by improving carbohydrate metabolism, which is improved transportation and utilization of carbohydrates in the body (Andre, 2013). In addition, physical activity controls hypertension (Fagard, 2001) as well as some coronary heart diseases.
However, as mentioned above, the main cause of a lack of physical activity is the lack of time. Did you know that, if the intensity is right, just 20 minutes of intense activity increases your endurance as well as your ability to produce energy (MacInnis, 2016)? So, a simple 20 minutes has a lot of benefits. That being said, thanks to the multiple benefits mentioned above, more and more companies are offering their employees physical activity coaching during lunch hours. In fact, some companies offer their employees the possibility of going for a run under the supervision of a kinesiologist, or to train in a gym with other employees. Companies even go so far as to pay for nutrition training to ensure the complete health of their workers. In short, physical activity is essential and we must take the time to learn how to manage our health in order to perform well in our professional and daily lives.
