This section is entitled workflow, and it focuses on optimizing your work behavior for maximum comfort and productivity. We've established the value of how we position and posture our bodies, set up our workstations and incorporate movement into our work day. And as a health and performance coach, and physical therapist, I also want to emphasize the importance of restorative sleep, great nutrition and joyous relationships in the pursuit of peak performance and happiness. But how we go about our work or in other words, our workflow can be incredibly impactful. Enhancing workflow is based in four key areas and they are mindfulness interval ization, gratitude and positivity. These are behaviors that really make a difference in how we progress through each work day by helping us to minimize stress and discomfort while maximizing health and productivity.

Mindfulness is a popular term these days, and this is rightfully so. Mindfulness at work is the state of being in the moment here and now and fully experiencing the present. Being mindful at work is essentially the avoidance of multitasking. Or let's call it the practice of mono tasking, concentrating on only one thing at a time. Minimizing distractions, and using energy wisely, can allow us to execute tasks without the dilution of our focus. And to accomplish much more work with less effort over the course of the workday.

With mindfulness we avoid reacting responding and juggling in exchange for better time management and creative output. Many people establish their state of Mindfulness at work with a clean, quiet and uncluttered workspace. Others prefer background music to take up some of their cognitive bandwidth and enhance the flow state. Experiment with what motivates energizes and inspires you to be mindful at your work. My personal favorite technique is to focus on my breathing. Breathing is essential for health and it's enhanced by having a relaxed well aligned and mobile body.

But it's often easy for us to get so focused on work that we actually begin to either hold our breath, breeze overly rapid or shallow or tense up in the neck and shoulders. And this can impact our metabolism, tissue loads, stress, hormone balance and health just to name a few. By simply slowing down and deepening my breathing, inhaling easily and allowing my diaphragm and lungs to fill toward my abdomen, as opposed to straining to elevate the rib cage. I can keep my body in a relaxed or parasympathetic state, this is called the rest and digest state and it is preferred over the sympathetic or fight or flight state. Studies show that as few as six deep slow breaths can begin to put us in that parasympathetic dominance, lower heart rate, lower blood pressure, and actually improve cognitive function. This results in a mindful meditative state that is beneficial to work and to health.

Interval ization, is the application of the interval training model, which has been so successful in athletics, and has been proven to be equally effective at the workstation by using sickly on and off periods in which we produce high quality work, then strategic rest breaks where we recover, we can enjoy higher output with less errors. Studies show that this blocking or chunking behavior allows for a much greater amount of work to be done with less overall physical and mental fatigue. You can see how Many of the principles of the healthy workstation blend together those strategic breaks and the incorporation of movement into most of them work in concert with the focused mindful work intervals. This can be represented graphically. a steady medium low level in work effort has been shown by research to result in less output, less creativity and more errors and work or injury. When compared to interval based work.

The area under the horizontal lines represents total work done, and this is easy to visualize. It's during those work and rest intervals where you may want to consider the value of the nap. I'm talking specifically here about the tactical micro nap. And of course it depends on each of our work situations. While we definitely want adequate movement and oxygenation in most of our breaks, a strategically time nap can be an added benefit. Even In a well rested person who got a great night's sleep, a brief 10 minute nap can allow our bodies and particularly our brains to recover and recharge, you don't have to drift into a full 90 minute sleep cycle to get amazing benefits.

Although this may be an option for some workers, depending on the structure of the workplace, and the work day, many of my corporate wellness and ergonomics clients are surprised to hear that a small, inexpensive napping lounge area with rules for quiet and dim light is often a much better investment in overall worker health than a massive employee fitness center. nap stations are a great way to recover from intensely focused work sessions and meetings or even to re energize after lunch or during a mid afternoon lull in concentration. Most of us have a natural dip in circadian rhythm at this time, and we may want to try a quick nap or you may want to try a quick nap if you can make this fit into your workplace. If we can all employ an attitude of gratitude by expressing appreciation, dedication and ownership for our careers, we can vitalize the workplace and make it a source of health and happiness.

Letting our co workers know when they do something well has been shown to benefit the health and attitude of the giver of positive feedback just as much as the recipient. And this isn't just quixotic thinking. Research proves that the practicing of gratitude increases the production of certain feel good hormones and neurotransmitters like oxytocin and serotonin. And ultimately, gratitude helps us to maximize harmony and really see what we can contribute to this world. Positivity can be summed up in several ways. It's our attitude towards ourselves, and it is also how we communicate and collaborate with others.

Positive self talk, whether you verbalize it aloud or not. knot has been shown to improve health, happiness and creativity, while at the very same time reversing stress, hormone output, and negative or depressing thoughts. And when we work with and relate to others, delivering messages in non condemning fashion, fosters a positive, supportive work environment. In virtually all cases, even if you primarily work alone, you have to interact with clients, customers and colleagues. On some level. It's important that we always try to build community.

By working together we can all get better, do better and be better not just work or health, but life And isn't that what it's all about.