The Well-being Working Group and the Sustainability Working Group have prepared the May in Motion challenge for all FSV UK employees. Put on comfortable shoes, pull out your bikes and compete with your colleagues for the most kilometres walked, run and cycled. The rules of the challenge and the registration table can be found in your email.
Prizes and eternal glory await the winner, but that’s not the only reason you should join the challenge. Replacing your car or public transport with physical activity, not only on the way to and from work, has many benefits for you and the environment:
Sometimes it’s hard to find time to exercise. Making physical activity a regular part of your daily routine is a great way to be more active. Walking or cycling to work means less time spent sitting, the second biggest killer after smoking. Another option is to have meetings while walking – creativity increases by up to 60% while walking!
Whether you are perfectly healthy or suffer from chronic health problems, regular exercise will improve the condition of your heart, lungs, muscles and bones and joints. It will also reduce high blood pressure and the risk of type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and heart disease.
Daily physical activity helps prevent cognitive decline, improves memory and learning, and increases overall brain performance, including the transfer of information between different parts of your body.
Regular physical activity is associated with a reduced risk of depression, anxiety and other mental health problems thanks to the release of dopamine and endorphins. Movement also improves sleep and reduces everyday stress. Walking or cycling to work will put you in a good mood right from the morning! After work, walking or cycling can help you switch from work to personal mode.
We all know it, the morning rush hour can really get on your nerves. If you prefer to walk or cycle to work in the morning, you will avoid not only traffic jams and delayed connections, but also grumpy fellow passengers. You can easily change your route on foot or by bike in case of unexpected obstacles, and the final commute time will only be affected by your physical fitness and the weather.
In the EU, transport accounts for up to 30 % of the total production of greenhouse gases. Road transport accounts for about 72 % of this amount. The more we avoid road traffic, the less emissions we release into the air, thereby contributing to cleaner air in the long term and helping to slow down the warming of our planet.
Fine dust particles in the air represent one of the biggest threats to human health in Czechia. In Prague, up to 90 % of this dust comes from traffic. By using sustainable mobility, we contribute to clean air not only without CO₂ emissions, but also without dust particles from tires. The more we use walking or cycling in the city instead of road transport, the better air we will breathe in our cities.
It is a joy to move and live in countries and cities that support sustainable transport. Cities with pedestrians, pedestrian zones and cycle paths are vibrant, safe and healthy. In particular, if you decide to use walking as a means of transport, you create the least demands on the occupation of public space, thereby helping to create space for more pedestrian routes, greenery, water features, etc. You will thus help to reduce the intensity of individual car traffic, thereby narrowing roads for cars and reducing noise in streets.
When you don’t trap yourself in the metal box of the tram, metro or your car after hours spent in the office, but go through the city on foot or by bike, you will see it from a different perspective, discover new corners and interesting shops. You can alternate the streets and the way to and from work will be a new experience every time.
Leaving your car parked and commuting by bike or foot is an easy way you can help reduce your negative impact on the environment. Every time you walk or bike instead of driving, you change the world for the better, even if it seems like a drop in the ocean.
At FSV UK we support active movement. If you decide to come to work by bike or brisk walk, there are employee showers available. In the Hollar building, you can find a shower in the backyard by the library, keys can be borrowed from the reception desk. In the Jinonice Campus, there is a shower located in the garages in the basement, you only need your employee card to enter. Bike racks are also available for cyclists in the backyard of the Hollar building and in front of the Jinonice Campus. Don’t have a bike? No worries! With a Multisport card, which is a part of faculty’s employee benefits, you can do one activity per day for free and two 60-minute free rides on the Rekola shared bikes on top of that.
How to track your kilometres?
Sources:
https://news.stanford.edu/2014/04/24/walking-vs-sitting-042414/
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/cs/article/20190313STO31218/emise-co2-z-aut-fakta-a-cisla-infografika
https://www.chodcisobe.cz/o-chuzi/udrzitelna-doprava-a-jeji-dopady