Don't forget to include self-care into your work day!

Self-care is something we talk about a lot.  I do have a previous neck injury that makes me more susceptible to throwing my neck and back out. However, a lot of it based on posture.

Sitting at a desk all (or most of the) day means we need to take care of our bodies.  So I'm sharing my workday self-care ideas.

In this episode you'll learn:

→ Tip #1 – setting up your work station for success.
→ Tip #2 – schedule in breaks, and what to do with them.
→ Tip #3 – stretch throughout the day.

Want to skip ahead?  Here are some key takeaways:

[3:35] Pay attention to your work station.  Is it set up correctly for posture?  Keep things at 90 degrees.
[4:38] Scheduling breaks.  How can you get away from your desk to walk around stretch, eat or relax!
[5:43] STRETCH!  Get exercise from your health team to best fit your pain points in your body and improve your posture.

Resources

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Full Transcript

[INTRO] Hey guys, Sami here with another episode of the Fast Fact Friday for Digital Marketing Therapy Podcast. And today I want to talk a little bit about self-care. And not maybe in the way you might think. A couple of weeks ago, I was sleeping and rolling from my side to my back, actually through my neck out. Now I do have a recurring neck injury. But it took me a week and a half of going to the chiropractor almost daily to get it to a point where I wasn't in pain. And my chiropractor told me this is going to keep happening because it's all about posture. And so since most of us work from home and work at our desks I just wanted, or even if you don't work from home, just working at a desk and sitting at a desk and working at a computer, I wanted to share kind of the three things that I'm doing for self-care on a regular basis while I work.

But before we get into it, this episode is brought to you by our Digital Marketing Therapy Sessions. Now we typically charge for these 30 minute sessions. But currently in the state of the world that we're in, I know there's a lot of questions about what to do what not to do with digital marketing, how to maybe pivot your business in order to keep revenue coming in, even with all of this uncertainty.

And so from now until April, the end of April, we are offering our 30-minute Digital Marketing Therapy Sessions for free. So head on over to thefirstclick.net/officehours to grab your time. And I will chat with you for 30 minutes about whatever we can do in your business, how to keep things moving and generating revenue and keep your marketing moving. But still being sensitive to a lot of the things that are changing our world is changing, and that's just kind of the way it is. So, again, thefirstclick.net/officehours, snag your free 30-minute session. And I look forward to chatting with you. But for now, let's get into it.

[CANNED INTRODUCTION] You're listening to theDigital Marketing Therapy Podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. And each week, I bring you tips from myself and other experts, as well as hot seats with small business owners and entrepreneurs to demystify digital marketing and get you on your way to generating more leads and growing your business.

[BODY ] Okay, so self-care. A lot of times we talk about self-care, it's all about you know, taking a break from work and going to get a massage or have a glass of wine with some friends or date night with your spouse or, you know, whatever it might be, and exercising whatever. But I do think that there are self-care things that we can do while we're working that might even be more impactful to our overall health.

So like I mentioned in the intro, I threw my neck and my back out and I do have a pre-existing condition. I have had whiplash before. So I just really feel like now I'm doing some more things to kind of keep these issues from happening because it really messes up my schedule, it takes away time from my kids, it takes away time that I don't have. And the time that I do have, I don't want to spend on healing from a neck injury. So I am going to PT and doing things like that, which I guess is self-care. But there are three things that I'm trying to pay attention to during the day while I'm working to take care of myself. And so I want to share those three things.

TIP #1
So number one is really taking a look at my workstation. I do have a desk that I got for IKEA fairly inexpensively that goes up and down so I can stand part of the day and sit part of the day. And so that's great. But what I noticed is I sometimes when I move it up and down, I'm not actually putting it in the right position that's optimal for my body.

So what my chiropractor told me is everything should be at 90 degrees. So My arms should be at 90 degrees when I'm sitting or standing. So I'm not raising my shoulders and not scrunching up my neck. And if I'm sitting then my legs should also be at a 90-degree angle when they're touching the floor, and you're not supposed to sit on your legs, all that good stuff, yada, yada, yada. And so that's something that I've been trying to be more conscious of as I sit so that I have a straight back so that I'm not hunched over so that I don't get so fatigued during the day.

So something to pay attention to how is your desk set up in order to make your body continue to feel good as you're sitting and or standing throughout the day.

TIP #2
Number two is scheduling breaks. So I have an Apple watch that yells at me all the time and tells me to stand, which I appreciate. I also do things like walk around when I'm on a phone call with a client or whatever. If it's not something where I have to be at my desk, I try to walk around my house. But then outside of that I tried to schedule some specific breaks so forcing myself to take a lunchtime break to eat lunch and kind of, you know, maybe watch a show, take a 15-30 minute break just to separate myself from work completely and to eat some food nourish my body, or it could be 10-minute breaks between different tasks that I have in order to just step away from my desk, my computer take a break from the work that I'm doing.

And I like to try to schedule them into my calendar because it's a great reminder. I get alerts that that's happening and then it just forces me to kind of take that action and take a break.

TIP #3
And number three is to stretch. So I got some very specific exercises from my chiropractor, and I'm sure I'll get more from my PT as I start that this week, my physical therapist, but really also scheduling in time to stretch. So we tend to kind of like, I can't even think of the word but like our shoulders tend to roll forward we tend to push our neck out like we tend to kind of shrink inward as we're sitting at our desk all day. So having stretches to open up my chest, work on my posture, and to just you know, feel good. I try to do that at least once a day.

CONCLUSION
And so there are three simple things they really don't take a lot of time and it you know, I definitely am a proponent of taking extra time and doing self-care things outside of work. But I don't think we talk enough about the little things that you can do during the day to make your body feel better to make your mind feel better because of it.

And to help you get more things done so that you can take more time to do the things with your loved ones, your friends, your family, and just for yourself, massages and the workouts and all of that good stuff.

So set up your desk correctly, schedule in breaks and stretch. Those are my three self care tips for this fast Fact Friday. I hope this was helpful for you.

And if it was, make sure you subscribe. Wherever you listen, we come to you on Tuesdays and Fridays each week, and to give you tips, feedback, marketing help, and if you have any topics that you would like for me to talk about, please hit me up, I'd love to hear from you on Facebook, or Instagram @thefirstclickmarketing. But otherwise, head on over to thefirstclick.net/officehours, snag that free 30-minute session with me through the end of April so that we can help you pivot your business and make sure that you are still bringing in the income in these uncertain times. But regardless, thank you so much for listening, and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.