Vadbene karte za izvajanje aktivnih odmorov med dolgotrajnim sedenjem

The consequences of prolonged sitting are faced both by employers and by employees themselves. This paper presents the findings from statistical reports and scientific studies on the negative effects of prolonged sitting on employees’ health and consequently, on the importance of introducing short active breaks. A survey conducted among the employees of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Engineering of the University of Ljubljana revealed that as many as 88.3% of respondents perform their work in a seated position for an average of 2.9 hours per day. Although more than half (55.9%) of the respondents are physically active, they still most frequently experience discomfort caused by sitting, e.g. pain in the back, neck, wrists etc. While no structured group implementation of active breaks is organised at the faculty, employees still have the option to take such breaks independently, which, according to the survey results, suits them well. The majority of respondents (76.0%) prefer performing exercises whenever they feel the need for a break. Even though half of the respondents (50%) are aware that the discomfort (pain) caused by prolonged sitting could be alleviated by taking active breaks, they rarely do so. Those who do take active breaks individually (20% every half hour, 10% every two to three hours) generally perform the exercises freely, without guidance. To ensure that employees perform appropriate exercises during active breaks – especially those that prevent the negative consequences of prolonged sitting – we developed exercise cards as part of the study. Most respondents rated the cards as visually appealing (design, colour palette, typographic choices etc.) and useful. One third of the respondents stated that they would certainly use the exercise cards to take short active breaks during extended periods of sitting at work, while slightly more than one third were undecided. The majority of the respondents (64.5%) also believe that frequent active breaks supported by the exercise cards during long periods of sitting at work would indeed contribute to increasing their physical activity. The exercise cards were distributed to employees at the beginning of the academic year, together with information on the consequences of prolonged sitting