This simple protocol will protect your health from the dangers of spending hour after hour staring at your computer. Here’s what to do:

Set an alarm every hour

When the alarm sounds, spend 1-5 minutes getting up and moving. The exercise you’re doing during each of this mini-movement breaks will cycle through these three categories:

• upper body muscle engagement
• lower body muscle engagement
• getting your heart pumping

Here’s an example. On Monday, say you start work at 8:30. At 9:30 you’ll perform a few minutes of upper body exercise. At 10:30 you’ll perform a few minutes of lower body exercise. At 11:30 you’ll perform a quick burst of cardio exercise. Within each category, there are a variety of choices. Choose one or more. Then on Tuesday, you’ll follow the same pattern, except you’ll start with lower body exercises and cycle through the sequence from there. And so forth through the week.

Upper body muscle engagement

Here are some of your choices for exercises to engage the muscles of the upper half of your body:

• trunk twisting
• trunk side-bending
• rowing/pullbacks
• overhead press
• pressing your head backward – neck protraction
• bench press/push up

Lower body muscle engagement

• squats
• lunges
• side lunges
• toe raises
• kicking
• side leg lifts

Heart pumping exercises

• running in place with high knees
• burpees
• jumping jacks
• jump rope
• running up and down the stairs

Do you need a more specific description of these exercises? Or more variations? Or strategies that will work for your work environment? Let me know – I can talk you through it on the phone or perhaps on a video call.

It’s easy. Get going.