How often do you sit down in the office? Do you ever do any sort of work while standing upright?

Most of us today doesn’t know how to answer the following question. We leave our houses to go to work and end up sitting down most of our commute. We arrive there, take a seat in our desks and start working. The only time that we spend walking or at the very least, standing, is when we go for a break. If there’s one thing that we do more than anything else in the office, it’s sitting down. In fact, an average of 9.3 hours of our day is spent stuck in chairs; quite a large number compared to the 7.7 hours of sleep that we get. It’s an activity embedded in our daily life deep enough that we barely question how much we’re doing it.

A Harvard Business Review article released last January 2013 called sitting the smoking of this generation, further elaborating that we need to get up and start moving if we want to keep ourselves healthy.

There are several health drawbacks to spending endless hours sitting down and it affects everyone, even those who are maintaining exercise routines. A recent study based on nearly 8,000 adults have said that there is a significant connection between risk of early mortality and time spent sitting. Those who sat for less than 30 minutes had lower risks of early death compared to those who spent more down time. In addition to this, the moment we sit down several functions in our bodies are easily affected. Electrical activity in our leg muscles shut off, the time we take to burn calories drop down by 1 minute and the enzymes in our body that burn fat drops down by 90 percent. The aforementioned study also reported that those who sit 3 hours or more per day watching TV are 64 percent more likely to die from heart disease.

Experts says that for every 30 consecutive minutes of sitting, there should be an allotted five minutes for you stand up and walk around at a brisk pace to reduce its health risks. Moreover, moving around also helps in increasing productivity and allows you to focus to the task at hand.

Author of the HBR article from earlier, Nilofer Merchant, also discussed how she turned her usual coffee meeting to a walking-meeting. She said that after almost a hundred of walking-meeting, she surprisingly noticed other benefits. Walking also helps fight off dementia and Alzheimer’s according to a research by US neurologists. Paying attention to posture is also important. Take the extra step by making sure that you avoid slouching or hunching over the computer during your work hours. Studies have shown that poor posture when working increases feelings of depression and cuts off circulation.

In addition to this, there are certain things that we can do to convert our offices into healthy workplaces. Standing desks can be found in a handful of offices around the world, from communal offices like coworking spaces and even private offices. If allowed, switch to a standing desk every now and then. Look for a setup that allows you to adjust your workstation and gives room for a chair to be used when needed.

The activity of sitting is pretty unavoidable taking into account the nature of our respective lifestyles. Still, health should be a priority no matter how tedious it seems to be. And in any case that you have other ideas to lessen the time spent on couches and chairs, we’d love to hear it. Also, we’ll be more than willing to help you should there be a need for a healthier workplace.

Julia Child was an American woman married to a French diplomat who wanted to be so much more than just a wife yet was unsure of what she wanted to do. While Julie Powell is a 29 year old woman stuck in a cubicle with a run-down-the-mill job who felt lost.

The difference between them seemed non-existent at first, but Julia Child published her cookbook entitled The Art of French Cooking in the USA during the year 1961 all the while Julie Powell started her blog entitled the Julie/Julia Project in 2002.

With years separating these two ladies, no one would’ve thought that passion and cooking will create a connection between them.

Julie and Julia is a 2009 movie that combined the success stories of two different American woman and the life lessons that they have conveyed to women everywhere.

Julia Child’s passion for French food led her to enroll into the famous all male French cooking school Le Cordon Bleu at the age of 30. And despite the doubts her fellow students have thrown at her, she managed to be a chef. 7 years later, she published a cook book entitled The Art of French Cooking in collaboration with Simone Beck and Louisette Berthole. Years later, her cookbook inspires frustrated writer Julie Powell to start a blog of her own entitled Julie/Julia Project wherein she tries to cook all 524 recipes within one year. She continues her day job at a development corporation as she blogs.  Writer and director, Nora Ephron, combined Julia Child’s autobiography entitled My Life In France and Julie Powell’s blog into a movie about chasing after your dream.

Though set in different times, both stories of Julie and Julia relates to a handful members of the workforce and conveys meaningful life lessons that are worth sharing to the world.

Despite of Julia’s age, she continued to search for her life’s passion and didn’t care if most of her friends are already ahead of her. The movie starts in France where she continues her career exploration after having worked as an advertising copywriter and serving the government. She gives hat-making a try since she liked wearing hats yet it simply wasn’t for her. And instead of criticizing herself, she tries playing cards – turns out, it’s still not her thing. She finally moves to cooking and alas, she finally makes a connection with something she enjoys doing.

Julia Child’s road to cooking inspires us to go through our own pace and stop berating ourselves if we haven’t found our true life’s passion. Her career exploration wasn’t a waste of time, she didn’t mind learning and experiment on what she liked and didn’t like. She knew that it was her own pace of discovery and growth – a concept that we can hopefully try in the future.

Julie Powell went through a similar dilemma as well. As she worked herself away in her small cubicle, she saw her friends’ careers take off while she remained in her small apartment and mediocre job. She felt unhappy and lost. She was drowning in self-doubt when Julia Child’s cookbook pulled her out.

She starts a blog entitled Julie/Julia Project wherein she tries to cook all 524 recipes found in The Art of French Cooking within a year. And though she struggled to complete all recipes all the while maintaining her day job, she pulled through. In addition to this, writing also helped Julie rediscover herself.  Through it, she confronted aspects of herself that she hated, like her recurring mental breakdowns and how she takes his husband for granted. Immediately, she tries to resolve this issues within herself. Julie Powell’s unwavering determination is proof that commitment pays off. She took personal responsibility of her success and treated her failures as temporary setbacks.

The ability to make a living out of what brings you joy is an opportunity not a lot of people can have but these two women are proof that maybe it’s not too late to chase after what you want. Today’s workforce continues to challenge the traditions we have had in order to have a healthier career life. Flexible workspaces and working hours allow professionals to have enough time to pick up a new hobby or learn a new skill that they’ve been eyeing for a while now.

In her book, Julie says

“Julia taught me what it takes to find your way in the world. It’s not what I thought it was. I thought it was all about-I don’t know, confidence or will or luck. Those are all some good things to have, no question. But there’s something else, something that these things grow out of. It’s joy.”

“Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds”

Ever since we were young, we were told that hard work is the price of success. Our parents told us that nothing good comes easy. Our teachers reiterated the same thing, study hard and earn good grades. Though there’s no denying the legitimacy of what hard work can bring, none of us can dismiss the fact that work is predominantly taking over humanity, leaving no room for other things that matter to a happy and healthy life.

An overworked labor force is an epidemic happening all around the world. From countries like Mexico, Costa Rica to Korea. Another major culprit is United States, with an average workweek of 46.7 hours, meaning that a person who leaves their home at 8 a.m., won’t leave their office until 6 p.m., a whole entire day dedicated to work and sleep, nothing else. And it seems that overworked employees from the Philippines have also reached epidemic proportions.

The Philippine Statistics Association (PSA) reported a 41% increase in the number of overworked employees since the year 1995. By the year 2015, almost 8.1 million people are now working for more than 48 hours in a week. The aforementioned report also noted that having more than the usual hours of work can interfere with the balance of personal life and work. It can also increase injury hazard risks, signal inadequate pay and can pose a long term threat to a worker’s mental health.

A Harvard Business Review article on how long working day hours can actually backfire discussed whether overworking actually works or not. In a study conducted by a Boston University Business Professor, managers could not differentiate the output of those who actually worked 80 hours a week and those who only pretended to do so. The professor found no significant evidence to prove whether overworked employees accomplished more and employees who only pretended to work accomplished less.

The aforementioned article also discussed that overworking results affects the company as well. Numerous studies around the world have reported various health issues due to stress, usually involving impaired sleep and memory, diabetes, depression and even heart disease. These health issues are already bad alone but it’s also appalling to the company with the rising health insurance costs. In foresight, overwork is terrible for both parties.

In summary, overwork diminishes our capability to progressively work on tasks that matter.

Last March, Senator Grace Poe filed Senate Resolution No. 316 asking to propose legislative measure to the rising number of overworked Filipinos.

The senator cited the aforementioned PSA report, further elaborating on the matter by citing that during the year 2015, around 8.845 million employed Filipinos are working excessive hours per week – with an overall 4.5 percent increase from the 8.467 million count from the year 2005. She then proposed a review of company policies that require employees to work long hours, an examination of labor laws and passage of legislative acts that can ensure humane work conditions for Filipinos.

The working day call for help have become a global phenomenon as well. All over the world, professionals are asking for flexible work hours that allows them to have more control over their time. More and more young entrepreneurs and startups are opting remote working, revoking traditional ideologies of the 9-to-5 work day. Flexible workspaces have also emerged like coworking spaces to give workers freedom to dedicate their time to more important matters like family and loved ones.

Would anyone believe you if you say that there are invisible monsters hidden behind success? No, not the kind of monsters that are hungry for wealth or market shares. But the one that has an unending appetite for destroying everything you’ve worked hard on anytime it pleases. The kind of monsters that feed off of a person’s self-esteem and sanity.

How can we believe in something we can’t see? How do you fight something you can’t touch? Just imagine, a hero fighting an invisible war against an intangible monster.

It’s the reality some entrepreneurs have to face. Conquering war after war of isolation and emptiness, telling their selves to live for another day – to breathe and breathe until the violence in their heads have subsided. If they’re lucky, they reach success without suffering mind wars. If not, every step they take towards their goal, is one step closer to darkness.

We know entrepreneurs to be brilliant individuals, they create new jobs and prosperity, introduce services and products that improve our daily lives and even help economies grow. And it only makes sense that most of us assume that all of them are living the dream. Yet unbeknownst to us is a dark side startups have – one that they are most likely familiar with.

In a 2015 study conducted by UCSF clinical professor Dr. Michael Freeman, he linked high rates of mental issues to entrepreneurship. Surveying 242 entrepreneurs, 49% of them reported having a mental-health condition. Depression was present in 30% of all the participants and is also the number one reported condition, shortly followed by ADHD and anxiety problems. Another study suggests that authority can be linked to depression, and that entrepreneurs or CEOs may be depressed more than double the rate of the general masses. Popular articles have also claimed that success comes with numerous strings to them and can possibly pull a person down.

The quiet war between startups and depression have been going around for so long that they’ve already lost several members of their community. It’s a war that no one sees or no one talk about.

The problem isn’t new, according to experts. It was something that successful people struggle with for most of their adult life. Yet at the same time, it is something they continue to fail to talk about. Afraid that it will be taken as a sign of their weakness, entrepreneurs hide their pain away – only for things to go for the worse in the long run. Running a business itself can be quite a stressor to a person’s emotional well-being. The risk of failure is too high to ignore. Moreover, Harvard Business School lecturer Shikhar Ghosh have said in a study that three out of four startups fail. Hence, they are exposed to traumatic events along the way. And with habits such as eating too much or too little as well as lack of sleep and physical exercise, it’s not much of a surprise that entrepreneurs are more susceptible to anxiety and despair than most people.

Research have also said that the innate character traits many entrepreneurs share make them vulnerable to strong emotional states. And though psychological makeup differs from one person to another, significant setbacks in the business can knock anyone to the ground. Numerous successful people in history have gone through a silent battle against the incapacitating depression in their heads. Throughout this unending war, there are some who have won and sadly, there are those who lost.

At the same time, there are still those who continue to fight on a daily basis. They inhabit their own little ways of keeping their selves in check. They make more time for themselves and their loved ones by acquiring Coworking Spaces membership. Instead of staying in one dull office, they move around these communal areas to interact and for creativity to flow. More importantly, they try to admit their vulnerability to those around them. Though it may be hard, they strive to be more emotionally honest and connect deeply with their family and friends. In addition to this is gathering up the courage to ask for help.

These invisible monsters lurking in the day do not pick their victims by wealth or social status. That being said, all around us are hundreds of unsung heroes going through their own battles silently asking for help.

Give them a hand and be a little nicer to everyone. Any amount of kindness can lead to someone’s happiness.