The Secret to Increasing Work Efficiency in 2 Seconds

The way you create and maintain your work posture can make a significant difference in your work performance and quality.

Your body posture during work plays a more important role than you might think. Whether you sit up straight or slouch has a major impact on the quality of your work.

Max Vercruyssen – an expert in human performance (studying the physical and mental factors that affect people in work environments) – states that the way you create and maintain your posture will make a significant difference in all of your body’s activities.

According to Max Vercruyssen, office workers can absolutely improve their work performance if they know how to utilize proper body postures, and this adjustment only takes about… 2 seconds.

Sit up straight to “fight” post-lunch fatigue

An important change occurs when you sit up straight or stand up: your heart rate increases by about 10 beats per minute. This helps improve reaction time and enhance attention. Therefore, office workers can adjust their posture by sitting or standing up straight when taking on an important task that requires a high degree of attention and concentration.

However, don’t rely too much on this solution when you are already performing well, as its effects are most noticeable when you are tired or experiencing a decline in work performance, especially in the period after lunch.

Don’t get too comfortable

The more comfortable you are, the easier it is to lose focus, and you might even feel like dozing off. For instance, sitting on a hard chair will help you stay more alert than a chair that is too soft and comfortable.

If you can’t change your comfortable chair, you can boost your brain’s alertness and pull yourself out of that post-lunch slump by taking a few minutes to go to the restroom or get a glass of water.

However, before you replace your office chair with a “log,” you should note that there’s a difference between mild discomfort and a posture that can cause discomfort to the point of… pain. “If the discomfort is too great, it will become your focus of attention, so you can’t fully concentrate on the work you’re doing,” says Bill Yates, a professor of neuroscience and otolaryngology at the University of Pittsburgh.

A slumped posture makes you feel sad

In a series of studies, Erik Peper – a professor of health education at San Francisco State University – asked participants to sit in different positions and recall both negative and positive thoughts and memories. As a result, those with a slumped posture found it difficult to recall positive things.

“A physiological change actually occurs when you let your body slump. Testosterone decreases, cortisol increases, making it easier for you to think negative, hopeless thoughts,” said Professor Peper.

It’s a fact that when we feel depressed or down, our bodies tend to slump and slouch. When we sit in a chair all day, we can feel as if we’ve lost our initiative, or even our sense of direction.

The good news is that Professor Peper also found a positive effect in the opposite direction: people who sit up straight find it easier to recall optimistic memories. And just by sitting up for 30 seconds, you can significantly improve your mood and the energy within your body.