Provided by IMC! Peer Mentor: Nick Howard
Have you ever held a job so physically demanding that leaving work, your body aches, you’re in a bad mood and you dread coming back the next day? On the flip side, have you ever held a job so sedentary that you feel the same way? Well, I have, and I would like to share a few key lessons I have learned about taking care of the body while also taking care of the pocketbook.
Let’s say Susan works a factory job at the local steel plant. Hours are long and the work is heavy, leaving Susan tired, hungry, and her back bothering her every night after work. Let us also say Brian is an accountant at a local tax firm. Long hours are spent hunched over his desktop computer and he leaves work tired, hungry, and with tight hips along with sore wrists from sitting and typing all day. Both Susan and Brian work hard to provide for their families, but don’t take care of themselves in the process.
But there’s a solution to this. If Susan and Brian were to spend 30 minutes per day walking, running, stretching, or performing resistance exercise, their overall well-being would be positively impacted – joint and muscle tightness and soreness would be improved with the building of muscle and increased mobility from resistance exercise and stretching. Their heart health would also improve from walking or running. Susan could wake up 30 minutes earlier every morning to perform resistance exercise and stretch to make her physically demanding job easier over time with her increased strength and mobility. Brian could walk the stairs and perform hip-mobility exercises on his lunchbreak, so he feels more comfortable sitting and standing up from working all day.
Financially, Susan and Brian will see improvement in overall financial wellness from increased emphasis on physical wellness. Increased physical activity will have a positive impact on their mental health and potentially increase job satisfaction, leading to better performance at work. They’ll also save money on long-term healthcare expenses – better physical health leads to a vastly decreased risk of lifestyle diseases like Type II Diabetes, Heart Disease, Lung Disease, and others. On top of that, Susan and Brian will spend less money on health insurance – will better physical health, they may pay lower premiums with the lower risk they are to acquire these lifestyle diseases.
Overall, budgeting a little extra time per day to get physically active can improve mood, job performance, and long-term health costs, leading to better financial wellness. Take this lesson from Susan and Brian and try to fit some extra time – say, thirty minutes per day – to be physically active, and see the improvement!
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