Exercise for work satisfaction?

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Lucky C
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Exercise for work satisfaction?

Post by Lucky C »

Over the years I've gone through periods of exercising routinely and periods of being very sedentary. I find that when I exercise regularly and eat well, I tend to be more satisfied with work.

This makes sense since exercise and eating healthy improves your mood, keeps your energy high, and helps keep your mind sharp. Assuming you care about your work performance at least a little bit, exercising could certainly improve your performance and job satisfaction.

I'd rather try to maximize my job satisfaction while I have to work there, than just trudge along counting down to FIRE. Lately I've been motivated to exercise simply because it will help me not hate work!

Does anyone have any quick exercise routines to help power through the work day? I think what would be ideal is to have a quick routine that's easy to stick to every Mon-Fri morning, which doesn't take too long.

jacob
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Re: Exercise for work satisfaction?

Post by jacob »

As for exercises directly related to work satisfaction or tolerance (depending on where one falls on the scale), I've found that the exercise needs to be fun and engaging to take one's mind off of work for a while. It should not be something that's dreaded or adds stress to the work.

Anecdotally,
Good choices: Hockey, sword fighting.
Both require so much focus that one completely forgets about everything else and they're something to look forward to.

Bad choices: Running, swimming, gruelling fitness routines.
The last one is something one dreads all day long. The former allows for too much time to think about work.

theanimal
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Re: Exercise for work satisfaction?

Post by theanimal »

jacob wrote:\
Bad choices: Running, swimming, gruelling fitness routines.
The last one is something one dreads all day long. The former allows for too much time to think about work.
Unless you're young and recover quickly, in which case you look forward to the grueling fitness routine. :)

jacob
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Re: Exercise for work satisfaction?

Post by jacob »

Even when I was your age, some workouts filled me with a sense of dread. I always wondered why people said they felt good and energized post workouts until I tried some relatively light workouts where the subsequent endorphin release isn't overriding by large amounts of microdamage.

theanimal
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Re: Exercise for work satisfaction?

Post by theanimal »

That's fair. Maybe I need to find something harder. I did dread doing regular Insanity fairly often. I don't dread Max 30. I find the workouts very difficult but have not had significant muscle soreness the day after on any of the days as of yet.

enigmaT120
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Re: Exercise for work satisfaction?

Post by enigmaT120 »

jacob wrote: The last one is something one dreads all day long. The former allows for too much time to think about work.
You think while you run? I don't. If I did, it certainly wouldn't be about work.

12b-6
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Re: Exercise for work satisfaction?

Post by 12b-6 »

Not so much a workout routine, but every hour of the work day I walk up and down eight flights of stairs. It's convenient because my office is right next to some stairs, it adds up to a decent amount of exercise (at least compared to sitting in a chair all day), and doesn't require any additional time or planning to fit into my schedule.

I haven't thought of any other exercises that one can do throughout the day like this. Does anyone have something similar they do?

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