How does your lifestyle & health make you more – or less – likely to suffer an injury?
Lifestyle factors, physical capacity and resilience to injury are all linked. See below for a selection of examples of this link:
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Strength & flexibility: inadequate flexibility leads to stiffness, poor posture, back problems, movement limitations, fatigue and higher risk of injury.
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Excess weight: 1kg of extra weight equals 3kg extra pressure on your knees, increasing the rate of wear and tear and putting you at greater risk of injury.
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Nutrition: prevent fatigue and improve concentration on the task at hand by eating small, frequent meals throughout the day.
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A person with sleep apnoea = 7 times more likely to have a car accident.
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Obesity increases the risk of injury, including an increased probability of slips, trips and falls and musculoskeletal injury. Sleep apnoea increases road injury risk and is strongly associated with obesity.
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Poor posture: this places extra pressure on your spine, increasing your risk of back injury (such as a slipped disc).
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Diabetes and pre-diabetes results in an increased risk of blurred vision, black spots and holes in vision.
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Fatigue: can result in a lack of alertness, slower reactions to signals or situations, and affect a worker’s ability to make good decisions.
What lifestyle prescriptions would be most effective for you – and/or your workers – to improve physical capacity and resilience to injury? (If you’re not sure – we’re here to help!)
Numerous research studies consistently show that worker health and wellbeing is closely linked to productivity, risk of injury and business costs. It’s time to take action.
One of our health and injury prevention solutions is ‘Body Mechanics’. It involves a fun, engaging and different way to look at the body that works to improve health, physical capacity and task specific techniques to reduce injury risk. Let us know if you’d like to find out more about how this program could work at your workplace!