Looking after your physical and mental wellbeing whilst working from home

During a day of work, we can be so busy, so focused, that we forget our bodies are taking on the physical impact of our mental stress. 

To look after both our mental and physical selves, we need to make sure we are taking breaks from sitting in the same position at our desks all day, so that our bodies and minds can stretch, relax and adjust. 

Recently a local physiotherapist Dave Adkins, volunteered to run a Q&A session for the Kids Inspire team who, like many others, made a shift to working remotely during the pandemic. The session was focused on physical wellbeing and how we can take steps to improve our work environment at home.  

Over 30 colleagues from across the organisation attended the session looking for support to soothe their physical aches and pains that can accompany online working. 

There is an important link between physical and mental wellbeing and at Kids Inspire our therapeutic team work creatively to encourage body and mind reconnection with young service users. The physiotherapy session was a special moment for the team to learn about how they can improve their own physical health with online working.  

Dave highlighted in the session that often the aches we feel after a day of online work, have been building up gradually over the day and can be difficult to alleviate. His advice for avoiding this build up is to make regular changes to your posture, taking breaks every 30 minutes or so to move your body. 

One of our Dance and Movement Psychotherapists tell us about the importance of looking after our physical health:  

 "It’s really important to make time and create space to stretch our muscles, increase our heart rate and notice how we are feeling from a fitness perspective, but also noticing our mood, energy and the internal emotional weather". 

After what has been (for some) over a year of online working, it is so important that we allow ourselves space to pay attention to how we are feeling both physically and mentally to help avoid burning out.