Working from Home.  If you’re lucky enough to be working, you’ll be doing a lot of sitting in front of a screen. If you’re looking for a job, you’re probably doing the same thing.

Coaching conversations now regularly include reflections from executives about how hard it is to get up from the desk and away from the screen, and how ‘flat’ they’re feeling.

On the other side of the screen, members of your virtual team could be feeling exactly the same way.  And that’s not good for engagement or motivation.

We know sedentary living isn’t good for us, but even when we work from home, finding the time to get up and move is a challenge.

Maybe this idea will help give you a boost, and get you through the day. Try downloading your favourite track. Then hit ‘play’, and bust a move. It only takes a few minutes. Squeeze it in between meetings and shake out some stress. Get out of your head and back into your body.

And you can get creative too, and do it your way. Dancing is defined as ‘moving your body and your feet to music’ by the Cambridge Dictionary, which leaves a lot of scope for interpretive moves.  And yes – the benefits are backed up by science.

One of the benefits – the social one – isn’t always easy to achieve when you work from home. But don’t disregard the others. Dancing can help calm anxiety and give us an emotional mood-boost. It gets the blood pumping, develops sensory awareness, strengthens muscles that help us to stand – and sit – straighter. The music we choose can remind us of good times, stimulate our creativity, and motivate us. That can help us to motivate others too, through that screen.

So go for it. Dance like no-one’s watching. Because unless you’ve left your webcam on, no one is.

Need a track to bust a move to? In 2018 Columbia Business School and INSEAD released data from research they conducted with Billboard and Echonest. Creating an algorithm to identify the most ‘danceable’ hits in the history of pop mega hits since 1958, their chart topper was ‘Give It To Me’, by Timbaland.