3 Ways Exercise Can Help You at Work

SHUTTERSTOCK
If you're used to working out before or after the daily grind, here's a suggestion: start incorporating fitnessinto your workday. Some recent cool research shows that a sweat session can have a positive effect on your job performance. Here are the details:
It Fuels Your Creative Juices
Ever notice how desk jockeying all day can leave you feeling so uninspired? Then this is for you: A new study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychologydemonstrates that simply taking a walk during office hours can score you a creativity surge. Study authors conducted four separate experiments, asking subjects to take part in a series of creative exercises while doing some combination of sitting, walking, being rolled in a wheelchair, and/or walking on a treadmill. The results demonstrated that walking indoors and outdoors triggered a burst in creative thinking, with the average creative output rising 60 percent (!) when a person was walking. 
It Calms Your Nerves
If the idea of delivering a big presentation or speaking up at a meeting makes your heart pound, consider doing yoga beforehand. Astudy from the Journal of Physical Activity found that just 20 minutes of Hatha yoga (the kind that involves traditional physical postures and deep breathing) reduced anxiety more profoundly than 20 minutes on a treadmill or no exercise at all. Of course, it's not always easy to steal some time away to ommmm. But if you can manage it, plan your session 30-40 minutes before your date with the conference room to rack up the best results. 
It Helps You Stay Balanced 
Think a workout session is just a time suck in your already-busy day? AHarvard Business Reviewstudy suggests the opposite is true: People who managed to stick with their regular exercise routine experienced less trouble finding a good work-life balance, possibly because structured activity helped people become better at time management and more confident in their ability to pull off the demands of both work and home. 
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Women's Health Magazine 
PUBLISHED: APRIL 28, 2014  |  BY ESTHER CRAIN

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