Change It Up

Image

• Include micro breaks in your tasks for recovery and fatigue prevention.
• Rotate through different tasks to provide working rests.
• Your body benefits from movement! Keep moving  and changing your position throughout the day.
• Tasks that have little recovery time should be highly prioritized for change.

Ideas for a healthy body

Use these ideas to improve tasks at work and at home.

• Design work to include micro breaks and different activities that allow the body to recover (working rests).
• Even a light task, like using a computer mouse, needs recovery time built into the task.
• Organize your day to include a range of different tasks. Switch between tasks that use different parts of the body.
• Organize work so workers have the flexibility to vary their activities, allowing for recovery when they need it.
• Rotate your workers between tasks on a regular basis without exposing them to tasks with high MSD hazards.
• Job rotation should not be the only control for MSD hazards. Work to eliminate or reduce the hazards themselves.

Did you know?

• Repeated or continuous work with little chance for the body to recover can lead to fatigue and discomfort.
• Repetitive work or holding one position for a long period of time can reduce recovery. Well-organized work can let one part of your body recover while another part performs a different task.
• Recovery times or pauses may not be built into the production rate or pace of work.
• Changing activities and building rest periods into the job allow the body to recover.

Improve your workplace

• Keep asking yourself and others, “Why does the job not have recovery time built in?” until you understand the problem.

What are we going to do today to improve recovery time for our bodies?

Think of 3 ideas.

Whatever changes you make, check that you are not creating any new problems.