Importance of Physical Activity & fitness during COVID-19

 

Importance of Physical Activity & fitness during COVID-19

·         Physical activity and exercise can be effective treatment strategies for symptoms of both depression and anxiety.

·         Consistency and sustained motivation may be enhanced by peer support, family support, or electronic platforms offering exercise programs.

 During the COVID-19 pandemic, when so many of us are very restricted in our movements, it is important for people of all ages to be as active as possible.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted just about every aspect of ordinary life — and exercise routines are no exception. Work-from-home, remote learning, and public health guidelines for gyms and fitness facilities that include capacity limitations, cleaning protocols, mask wearing, and social distancing has changed how, when, and where we exercise.

Being at home during @lockdown time as well as the #NewNormal and #WFH has forced sedentary life style on most of us and many of us starting developing unhealthy lifestyles, mental pressure that increased the chances of life style diseases.

 

Many companies are offering free use of their on-line platforms that may help to identify a variety of in-home activities (Cycling, free hand exercise, indoor cycling, yoga, strength training etc) to help make exercise more enjoyable during this critical period. 

Employee Engagement will be key focus area in post Covid Era

 Employee engagement will be the strength of the mental and emotional connection employees feel toward their places of work. Employee engagement has attained a kind of centre-stage, in the COVID induced New Normal and #WFH era. Some fundamentals will never change, no matter how much the world changes. Employees are the biggest asset for every organisation and it’s the fundamental responsibility for any organisation to keep their employees motivated and engaged.

Employee engagement and acknowledgement were important before the pandemic, they are critical now and they will continue to be of umpteen significance in the future. Interactive and immersive communication is the pillar on which trust thrives and it is essential in fostering employee engagement. Trust and job satisfaction, in turn, goes a long way in improving employees’ performance and engagement.

It is rightly said that a healthy mind and healthy body go hand in hand. Therefore, as we felt that the lockdown was beginning to be over and life was limping back to normal, we decided to challenge our people to start living a healthy life once again.

The challenge was – what can one do that is simple, known to all and can be easily done without much cost. We started to see articles in the media that said cycle sales have gone up many times in the pandemic due to the gyms being closed and the need for social distancing.

Many articles we came across in our google search said that cycling and running are equally good as a sport. Cycling has a plus point as it causes less stress on the body as compared to running which is a more injury prone sport. Cycling on an average burns around 350 calories in an hour and therefore we narrowed down on cycling as the sport.

The next task was to find a way to bring together people in different geographical locations competing together. And that is where we came across strava and google fit. We chose ‘Strava’ and ‘Google Fit’ the two apps that are universally accepted fitness apps.

We have started a four-week long activity for walking and cycling. We have named the walking enthusiasts as Egis Walksters and the cycling enthusiasts as Egis Cycling Czars.

We were not very sure of the participation as this is the first time we are organizing a challenge like this that too virtually. To encourage participation, we formed clubs in Strava and encouraged the employees to check out how they are performing against each other as trial before we announced the competition.

We were flooded with participation requests. We started two separate whatsapp groups to stay connected with the participants. We started sharing videos and links on various topics related to the challenge.

Response: The response has been overwhelming. People who cycled in their schools and colleges started cycling again. People who stopped walking long time ago started special alarms to just go out for walks in the mornings.

The groups started filling with messages of how many kilometers each of the participants completed daily. It was a very healthy competition where everyone wanted to outperform the other participants and to prove to themselves that they are the best.

We are not looking at the winners only. We are looking at changing the behavior of our employees towards a healthier life. A life where they put fitness and wellbeing in the center of their universe.

 By Bhaskar Majumdar, Head - Corporate Affair, Communication and Digital, Egis India