Remote work is probably hurting your body and brain

Valid points in the article but they boil down to:<p>1) WFH unexpectedly made for awkward at-home office arrangements (eg kitchen table) and meeting formats (eg. zoom) BUT over time people sorted these things out 2) WFH people worked much longer hours perhaps over compensating for not being in the office, and that takes its toll on health<p>That&#x27;s it. So really nothing to see hear _except_ that this is a subtle attack on the WFH spun to favour those who need to see their workers in the office.<p>The funny thing is: WFH favours those who are productive but penalizes those who get ahead by &#x27;networking&#x27; or &#x27;schmoozing with the boss&#x27;. If you&#x27;re in the latter group where promotion-by-popularity is what works for you then, yeah, WFH is a bummer.

What dreck. What was hurting my body and brain is the ~2 hours of commute I had to go through every day when I was working in the office.<p>Nowadays I can spend the extra time working out or taking care of myself.

In the office: 1-2 hours wasted on commute. Access to espresso machine. Open-plan cube farm with neighbors talking loudly all day and office dogs sporadically barking -- no opportunity for deep focus. Random shitty interactions with the public and officemates. Ergonomic desk setup, bad remote-meeting setup, bad audio setup (headphones). Get home at dinner time, cook while hangry and impatient. Occasional productive whiteboard sessions.<p>At home: Private office with a door (typically unused) and window with a lovely view. My coffee is better. Girlfriend to have lunch with, quiet cat who cuddles in my office. Ample opportunity for deep focus. No commute. Time to prep dinner during lunch break, relaxed and pleasant time to cook before dinner time. Interactions with co-workers are planned and work-related. Highly customized, ergonomic desk setup, great remote-meeting setup, great audio setup. Whiteboard collaboration is non-existent.<p>Almost every point about the office amounts to a daily pile-on of stress. I never knew how much that was impacting me until it was removed. Occasionally going in for whiteboarding is a nice opportunity to make and maintain peer relationships, but I&#x27;m never going back to full-time office work.

Reading fortune.com is <i>definitely</i> hurting your body and brain

Rubbish. The people who commissioned this story have no way of knowing your experience. They&#x27;re hoping you don&#x27;t trust your own perceptions, and they&#x27;re catering to CxO&#x27;s retrograde biases.

WFH: I&#x27;m down 25kg, walking 6-10km every day before or after work and having an hour of muay Thai training every other day in between my mid day break. Standing desk, and my home office features a bike, elastic bands, kettle, mace, club bells, and pull up bars to help with mobility and general fitness... Often during long meetings.<p>I do work about 8-10 hours per day, but the extra hours that I now put in used to be hours that I commuted. I&#x27;ve always been fit and loved exercising, but in my thirties due to WFH, I&#x27;m fitter than any point in my twenties.

Is this one more assault on bottom-rank productivity from the wastemonger leeches in the upper echelons, like the recent Malcolm Gladwell blabber? What does the article&#x27;s author know about the average home worker&#x27;s knowledge of ergonomics? Also do the author of these empty statements about collaboration know about pull-requests and rigorous work? Frankly the 21st century is calling and desperately wants its get-shit-done back!

I feel much better since I started working remotely.<p>I lost 35 kg, started walking about 8 km every day, i can switch my position in front of the computer (half the time i sit on a ball by my desktop, the other half i lie on my bed with laptop on it). So I don&#x27;t have back pain anymore.<p>Please don&#x27;t make me waste 1 hour commuting every day and sit in 1 place for 8 hours ever again.

I&#x27;m a software engineer, recently started going back to the office, by choice. The two years of lockdown turned my pleasant home office from a place to relax and listen to music to a cage. Minnesota cabin fever, all year long.<p>Being stuck at home also negatively impacted many of my hobbies, so my mental health took a hit from that as well. I feel like I&#x27;m starting to crawl out of a hole.<p>I do think my employer could have been supportive of working from home, pre - covid, but no way. Too much freedom and autonomy for the worker bees.

Bullshit article from a bullshit website! The idea that everyone is now some slouchy, pot bellied, dry eyed slob as a result of WFH is just insulting people&#x27;s intelligence.

I assure you saving 1.5 hours of my life from sitting in traffic every day is not hurting my mind and body. I work out at home, I have a healthy work life balance, I’m more connected with the people I care about. A better headline might be “change takes some getting used to, embrace the change and stay healthy.” But where’s the clickbait in that?

As a programmer I don&#x27;t really agree with this article as I was practically working remote even when I was in the office, but I also can&#x27;t deny that my knees have been getting progressively more achy. Likely because I am sitting for longer periods than if I were in the office. And sporadic back pain, but I also sleep on my stomach and that puts all kinds of strain and compression on joints over time.<p>I guess can see that a switch to WFH for non-tech employees could be stressful, but honestly I&#x27;m way less stressed than when going into the office.<p>Also I have no idea how the researchers came up with the 10-15 years that working from home has aged our bodies. Maybe that is talking about people that were previously used to walking around more in the office?

Fortune is the worst. All clickbait bs.

Last year, I started to WFH rather than face to face. I am working in the same field (not IT related), in a different organisation.<p>My office is now about 100 yards away from the beach, in a sunny country. I go swimming early in the morning before the tourists arrive, and sit with my wife in an open air bar sipping a diet Coke at lunchtime after walking the dog.<p>Don&#x27;t take me wrong, WFH has had an impact on my body, in that now I have a tan. I rarely drive, but I walk a lot. Often on sand.

&quot;According to Krys Hines, a Washington, D.C.-based workplace wellness and ergonomics educator at KH Ergo and Wellness, the recent shift to remote work has aged our bodies by about 10 to 15 years.&quot;<p>Not surprising that a seller of ergonomics consulting services (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.khergowellness.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.khergowellness.com&#x2F;</a>) would make an unsubstantiated claim like that.

Was there some point when major media publishers decided they were all fine with being a mouthpiece for blatant attempts to “nudge” mass behavior? It first hit me during the Gamestop short squeeze incident when I started seeing articles every few minutes telling me why not to buy GME that we were living in a Truman show world. Now its eating bugs etc.

My WFH setup is an adjustable standing desk with ergonomically positioned monitor and keyboard.<p>I don’t spend 2 hours in traffic.<p>I exercise every morning.<p>I can put my feet in the grass whenever I need a break.<p>Remote work is awesome!!!

Whats the reasoning behind &quot;[elevate] your computer monitor so that it is four to five inches above your eyes&quot;?

With housing costs how are people going to manage to return to office? Remote work is the only way I can afford housing.

Yeah i think we need to protest with our wallets and take some of these “news” agencies out of business.

I&#x27;m curious if brain fog is more prevalent in people that live alone versus with another person.

Probably not as much as the sleep that got shaved off when I had to get ready to go to work.

Sponsored content for sure. TLDR anyway because I don’t care about what corporations demand. They have long controlled everyone in the worst of ways and deserve e heavy pushback and life-wasting commute requirements. You want me to commute? Pay for my time at salaried rate, transportation (of my choosing) costs, and lobby for both of those be tax free to me. Otherwise, go fuck yourself.

This article makes do many poor assumptions. Disregard it.