Comfort At The Office
Everybody’s work life has been affected by the pandemic. You might have lost clients, your job might have changed, or you might have lost your job and got a new one altogether. The last 18 months have seen profound change for a lot of people, but certainly there are now a lot more people working from home, either because of a directive by your employer, or because you were given a choice and you prefer it. But working from home does come at a cost.
We’re not talking about extra electricity costs, going through tea and coffee at a rate of knots, or even having to somehow create a new office space in the home, we are talking about health costs. The digital age is of course a wonderful thing. It enables us to work from home with – in most cases – unlimited fast WiFi, and to hold meetings over Zoom or Teams with people all over the country and all over the world. And it provides software to enable us to work in the same groups, with the same people, and to keep work accessible, sharable and organised.
The benefits of working from home
This has been a lifeline to so many businesses over the last 18 months, and with a slight change in procedures and policies, and with a little infrastructure investment, operations are able to continue pretty much as normal with people working from home, working remotely, but still able to work together. The flipside of this is that people are now chained to their desks and are getting no exercise.
Anyone who has a desk or office job might think they don’t really get any exercise at work, but think about how many times you used to get up from your desk to speak to someone in another office, or elsewhere in the workplace. Or you used to drive somewhere to visit a client, a supplier or another colleague. This all involved getting up and moving around, it all contributed to you feeling tired at the end of a working day, and it can all now be done digitally and from your desk.
The outcome of this is that homeworkers could be putting on weight without even realising it, but it can also have other health effects if you suffer from something like plantar fasciitis. This is the inflammation of the plantar fascia, a thick band of connective tissue originating at the front of the heel bone, and which stretches along the full length of the foot to the toes. Plantar fasciitis is experienced with a sharp pain in or around the heel, which can be particularly painful when you first get up in the morning or on standing after resting for a while. In this case, of course, it is also when you have been sat at a desk too long without moving, sometimes all day, or at least a large portion of it. The symptoms subside once you are active again.
OR8 Wellness insoles, socks and supports to treat plantar fasciitis
OR8 Wellness can supply insoles and arch supports to help relieve this pain, and to help you keep mobile in comfort, but compression socks are particularly helpful for people who are sat at a desk inactive for a long length of time. Compression socks increase oxygen and blood flow to the muscles by applying compression to the feet and ankles, thus reducing swelling and inflammation. They can also apply a gentle pull on the toes, which keeps the plantar fascia tendons stretched during periods of inactivity, to repair and heal the tendons in a better position. If worn when sleeping, or during the day when sat at the desk, they should reduce the pain experienced when you later stand up.
In addition to wearing compression socks at work, why not schedule a phone call where you can walk around the house or garden whilst talking, or even walking around the block or a park outside? You can make any notes when you get back to your desk.
Most employers are sympathetic to the upheaval and changes that working from home has presented, and certainly health concerns should be number one priority. So have a think about your daily routines, and between OR8 Wellness products and some forward planning, your health concerns should be manageable and working from home can continue to benefit everyone.