Hello again, Stimuli listener. It is I ADHD coach Ryan Mayer. Okay. I don't know why I'm talking like that. It's just kind of fun. But I'm here to tell you about part two of our Working from Home Series. In this episode, we'll be learning about the physical gains and strains of working from home. The truth is a lot of these tips can be used in offices too. It doesn't just have to be at your home. These tips can be used at university. These tips can be used while travel. They're just universally good tips for taking care of your body. So let's get ourselves moving, shall we?

I'm gonna give you several tips that rely on one specific tool, a timer. Now I know what you're probably saying, coach Ryan, I already have a timer. It's on my phone. That's how I'm listening to you right now. Turn my phone. And yes, while that may be true, you know what else the phone does? It distracts the living Jesus out of you. Do not use your phone as a timer. It's gonna work just about as well as your phone works as your alarm clock. You know what I'm talking about if you have ADHD.

So I want you to get a physical separate timer whose sole purpose is to let you know when a certain amount of time has passed. That's all it does. It's a time specialist. I use the timer, all the time. This is like the OG, the original of ADHD productivity tools. It doesn't need to get fancy. Yeah, it has some digital things, but you don't need that. We need something that's gonna help our time blindness be a lot more analog. It helps to make time visual.

That's why I love it. It helps to keep me focused and less distracted than using my phone as a timer. If you wanna learn more about it, feel free to send me a message and I'll get you connected. Or you can go on to time timer.com. Tell him Ryan sent you. Once you have a timer, use it.

Speaking of timers, I have one that goes off every 20 minutes. Ryan, why would you have one that goes off every 20 minutes? Great question. Thank you for asking. I have one that goes off every 20 minutes because when I'm working and staring at a screen, hyper focused for hours on end. My eyes and my face physically start to hurt. It turns out that humans weren't really built to be looking at the same distance for hours and hours during a workday, but that's what our work demands.

So I follow what I refer to as the 20 20 20. So every 20 minutes look away from your screen and stare about 20 feet ahead. You'd have to turn that into meters obvious. For 20 seconds. This simple exercise helps to reduce eye strain, it prevents headaches, and it really just gives your eyeballs a break so they can rest, relax, and stay healthy. If staring off into the middle distance seems like one of the stupidest tips you've ever heard, let's try little mental exercise.

Shall we imagine that I asked you to hold this three pound weight? Okay. For you imagining it, here you go. This three pound hold, this three kilogram. Take out to the fact I said pound. Here we go. Okay, now we go. If staring off into the middle distance seems like one of the stupidest tips you've ever heard. Well, let's try a little mental exercise. Shall we imagine that I asked you to hold a three kilogram weight in your hand? Okay, ready? Here you go. Here's three kilograms. Can you hold this one? Okay. Now I want you to hold that straight out in front of me. Could you do it? Sure. You. Thinking, ah, coach Ryan dies pretty easy.

Okay. Now what if I asked you to do that for eight hours straight? How would that be for you? Well, guess what? There are muscles around your eyes that you have to flex to get them to focus at a certain distance. So that's essentially what you're asking your eyeballs to do. This is the smallest effort exercise that will deliver the biggest impact long term that I can ever.

Remember that TTO principle that we talked about in part one, the good old beating 20 rule. Well, this exercise of the 20, 20 20 is gonna be the 20% effort that'll deliver 80% of the results. Give your eyes a break. Trust me. Okay, you talked about staring.

Now let's talk about sitting. Now, some of you may have undoubtedly heard the catchphrase that, and I'm using air quotes, sitting is the new smoking. And it's true. Sitting for 5, 6, 8, 12 hours a day or more, it's not healthy sitting for these extended period of times. It has a multitude of ions related to sleeping neck and back pain, and can relate to those cognitive disorders, cardiovascular health, digestion. Well, the list goes on. You get it. It's just not good for us, but especially for those of us with ADHD who benefit from movement.

So standing helps to reduce a lot of these physical stresses, but standing all day or walking in a treadmill desk comes with additional strains on your body. So what's the solution? A sit and a stand. Have a combination of a sitting and standing throughout your day. For example, I use uplift dust. They're one of the premier standing desks in the industry. I love them and the benefit of it is that I can change height at any time.

If you want to convert your current desk with no extra money, you can do what I did for years, which was put a couple of recycling or trash bins on top of your table. Get a bookshelf, stack it on top of that, and voila, standing desks. Use books, get creative, make your own version. I mean, after all, are known for our creativity, right? The internet is swimming with lip packs on how to. Or build a sit stand desk. This isn't the luxury that has to be reserved for the uber wealthy. It's just a simple pivot that will improve your health, extend your life, and help you to feel better mentally and physically in the process.

Here's the bottom line. The scientific literature shows that people who cut their sitting time in. Let's say you were sitting for seven hours a day. Now you've reduced that by three and a half hours. Cognitive abilities markedly increased, health improved. I mean, this isn't even working out or eating differently. This is standing. If you're thinking, okay, I'm into standing out for myself.

See what I did that, but how do I get. Can I just put my computer on a stack of books and on my desk and call it good? What about my keyboard? Won't my barbs be at weird ankles or something? Totally good questions, and don't worry, add you covered. Fortunately for you and me, my beautiful and neurotypical wife is an incredible physical therapist, and she has taught me this simple ergonomic rule.

It's called 90 90 90. This means when you're. You want your shoulders down and relaxed away from your ears and your arms bent at a 90 degree angle so your wrists are in line with your elbows. So that way when you're typing, you're not reaching up or reaching way down to get to your keyboard. You're looking straight ahead, not bending your neck, not bending down to see the computer screen. You're tilting your head way up. We're so used to looking down at our phone screens that we sometimes don't even notice when our computer screen is straining our neck. Once your head, neck, and arms are all aligned, you wanna make sure you're sitting straight and your knees and hips are aligned.

Now, trust me, I know we talk about brains and ADHD, but the brain and the mind are attached. We need to make sure we take care of all of this. So your hips should be under your shoulders, not just jutting out or pushed forward. These micro adjustments will save your body, not just in the moment, but we're talking for decades down the road. So you're listening to this and I'm dealing out all this life. But you gotta walk your talk, right? And I just don't mean putting action behind words. I mean, literally walk and talk baby.

So if you're scheduled for some sort of video conference call, and if it could be a no screen kind of phone call, pop in those earbuds. Let's get movement. Now, I always have a trusting pen and notebook to capture my thoughts during a call, but if I can be walking and moving, I can think. And I know that you've experienced this. There's been times where you've been out for a walk, you've been move it around, and you're just able to concentrate better. You have more creative ideas and solutions that, and it can put you in a better mood. Science backs this up. We can be up to as much as 60% more creative just by walking.

Now, of course you could FaceTime and walk. We've all seen internet videos of people doing that. So yes, the really careful crossing the street Stimuli mapping hold possible for damages that people waly different.

But I often will take calls with videos while walking around my home in the basement or in my home gym, or I'll just use my new treadmill best and be sure to walk out of comfortable, but slow speed. The main point here in all of this when you're working from hold is to stay. Let's be honest.

Most people when they first start working from home, their fitness routine suffers. I mean, I know mine did. I used to go to the gym before work that was on site at the corporate job I had, and when my commute became walking from the kitchen table to upstairs office, I totally stopped going to the gym. So it's understandable if you've had some struggles over the last few years, but we're here to build new habits and get. And there are plenty of movements that won't take you any equipment and won't even break a sweat.

Something as simple as body weight squats. What do I mean by that? Just squat down, stand back up. Or do you wanna take it a couple levels higher? You could do jumping jacks, push-ups, or even just walking around outside of your house or inside of your room. If you live somewhere where it's rainy all the time. Movement matters. Even small move. Above all, make sure that your actions match your desired outcome.

Ask yourself every day before you start work, who am I about to be? What are the outcomes from the habits and the actions I'm taking? Ask yourself, why am I doing this? Why is this important to me? Take the time to take care of. Because taking the time to take care of yourself means you're able to take care of others. That's my motivation to me.

My wife and my kids are everything I'm here to take care of and love them with all of my being and my heart. They're the reason for everything I do. But also, so are you. You are my family, dear listener, and I mean that. You and the struggles that you're going through. You're my motivation. You're my motivation for getting up in the morning, for getting enough sleep the night before for working out, eating healthy, practicing mindfulness, and being my best damn version of myself every day because showing up for you.

That's the most meaningful fulfilment of my life because finally my work matters. I can't do this job half-assed. You would. That's why it's taking me so long to record this for you, because I want it to be good. You deserve the best from me, from yourself, and from the world. So remember, dress for success mentally and physically, and it makes a difference.

Oh, one last tip. Working from home, it can be a little bit lonely, right? I mean, you used to have lunch with your office friends, and now you eat all alone staring at your computer. How about scheduling a virtual lunch with a friend. It's easy, it's free. It gives you something to look forward to, and it gives you an accountability partner for taking care of yourself and taking a break to actually put food in your value.

And trust me, do you have ADHD? I know how hard that is. I hope that these tips help you to embrace the gift that working from home truly is, and keep listening to Stimuli for more tips on how you can live your best life with ADHD.

I'm Coach Ryan, and as always, I believe in you.