Have you ever wondered if you get enough movement in your day?
Employees accessing the free gym facilities
Although this is a great question to ask, research shows that most people focus too much on blocking specific bursts of exercise into their calendar - such as a morning jog or gym session.
However, studies indicate that this isn’t the best approach to movement. In fact, many of us struggle to stick to these sessions or use them as a trade-off for sitting around for the other hours of the day.
Professor David Dunstan joined me in the most recent episode of my Build Your Ideal Day Podcast to discuss this very subject. David is Head of the Physical Activity Laboratory at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne and an NHMRC Senior Research.
His research focuses on the role of sedentary behaviour and physical activity in preventing and managing chronic diseases. In addition, David shared some excellent research-based advice that we can all use within our everyday routines.
So today, we will look at the research and see if there’s a more practical approach to getting more movement into our day.
Best of all, David’s suggestions are even more accessible to implement than those gym sessions you might occasionally feel guilty about skipping.
What is the impact of sitting and inactivity on our quality of life?
If you work in an office all week, reading about our sedentary lifestyles and their harmful effects on our physical and mental health might make you feel helpless.
After all, many of us feel too tired or busy to add more movement to our day, even if we know that sitting at a desk 40+ hours a week damages our health.
The good news is that all movement is good movement. So you don’t need to carve out an hour a day for a gym session - unless that feels good for you, of course.
The truth is that the healthiest people in the world don’t have or need a gym membership. They simply live within regions and communities that nudge them to move daily.
But you don’t have to move to another part of the world to get more movement in. There are things that we can learn from them and apply to our lifestyles, no matter how different our day-to-day lives look.
When I worked with David on a study of sedentary habits in the workplaces, I was shocked that most of us sat for 70% of the day[1] - and that doesn’t include sleeping time! Of course, most prolonged sitting occurs while working at a desk, but it also includes free time and sitting in cars or on public transport.
Modern technology and work patterns have engineered massive amounts of sitting into our daily lives, even though solid evidence shows that sedentary lifestyles are associated with an increased risk of chronic diseases, diabetes, heart disease, some cancers, and early death.
To combat this, the focus on exercise has usually been on adding specific moments of movement to your day - for example, taking a brisk 30-minute walk or going to the gym.
However, most of us need to pay more attention to what happens in the other fifteen or so hours of the day. Because unfortunately, 30 minutes of exercise won’t sufficiently cancel out all the health hazards associated with sitting. If you barely leave your chair to walk around the office or further from the car to the front door, your body is still taking the brunt of that sedentary lifestyle.
How can small changes to our physical activity have a massive impact on our well-being?
Thankfully, we don’t need extra hours in the day to fit in all the exercise we need, so office and desk workers don’t need to panic. Likewise, adding more movement into your day doesn’t require a vast lifestyle upheaval.
In fact, the Charles Perkins Centre’s latest research shows you don’t need to do 30 minutes of moderate physical activity in one big chunk - we can break this up into tiny increments throughout the day.
For example, climbing stairs, walking between transport stops, and even walking between small spaces in the office all count towards your non-sitting time. You don’t need to put aside 60-90 minutes to train in one block.
If you’re lucky, your workplace is already catching on and providing dynamic worksetting encouraging employees to switch between a range of posture changes throughout the day.
But you can switch things up at home too. If you finish work and slump in front of Netflix, maybe you can get up and stretch for a few minutes every hour - you don’t even have to pause your favourite TV show to get moving!
Many studies show that a 30-60 minute reduction in sitting time is shown to have significant advantages. That’s just a short walk, errand, or stretch every couple of hours for a few minutes.
Can you shape your environment to nudge you to move more?
Adding more movement into our routine can be easier said than done, even when we’re just looking at a couple of extra minutes an hour.
The best and easiest way to add more physical activity is to shape your environment in a way that naturally encourages you to move more. This way, movement won’t feel like an extra task or chore - it will just become a seamless part of your routine.
For example, dog owners know that getting a furry friend massively changes our daily environment and affects how much we move. Walking the dog, playing tug-of-war at home, or moving around the house to give them some extra attention all add extra movement to your day.
But no, getting a pet isn’t a requirement for adding movement into your environment.
Start by looking at your day-to-day routine and current environment; consider everything from how you currently get to work, run errands, socialise, and any other hobbies. Can you add extra movement to these routines?
Is there a green or blue space (such as parks, gardens, lakes or oceans) nearby that you’d enjoy going for a walk at every weekend?
Do you have a favourite pair of comfortable shoes that encourage you to go and walk? Leave them on the shelf by the front door if it incentivises you to go for a stroll.
You can also arrange to meet your friends outdoors instead of in coffee shops. (Or go halfway and meet them at the cafe in the local park so that you can enjoy a stroll after lunch.) The extra time outdoors also benefits your mental health, so many of these tips interconnect with other elements of well-being.
Also, staircases could be an opportunity for exercise. Or why not walk to the corner store and carry groceries instead of driving?
And while moderate activity is best, any movement is excellent - even light, easy, natural movement you’ll be happy to do every day.
How to increase your movement and reduce prolonged sitting
During the pandemic, many people incorporated movement in new and inventive ways, even if their government allotted only one hour outside a day.
We saw people take online exercise classes on YouTube, even if they’d never been to the gym. People who usually eat lunch at their desks started to use lunch breaks to walk around the neighbourhood - getting all the benefits of movement, being outdoors, and feeling a sense of belonging within their communities.
This was quite encouraging as it shows we innately understand movement is integral to our well-being. We saw how vital exercise becomes for our mental health during difficult times and how disrupting our routine forces people to think about their daily habits.
The key is not becoming complacent about our sedentary lifestyles and usual routines. Adding more movement to your day might be challenging, but it’s definitely one you can overcome.
Here are a few easy ways to sit less and move more:
HOW TO MOVE MORE AT WORK:
- Some workplaces provide height-adjustable workstations to allow employees to switch between sitting and standing throughout the day. (You don’t need to stand all day, alternating between sitting and standing is great.)
- Walk down the corridor to talk to your colleague rather than send an email.
- If you need to discuss something with a colleague, consider taking a walking meeting (you’ll also get the benefits associated with being outside as a bonus).
- Set a reminder on your phone every 30 minutes to get up and walk around (even if it’s just to top up your water and get a coffee, etc.).
- Always leave your desk for lunch. Go outside if you can.
- Use the stairs instead of taking the lift. (Start small and be realistic about what’s achievable - maybe begin with taking the stairs every other time you’d usually use the lift.)
- If you work from home, set hourly micro-breaks to move - whether around your house, walking around the block, or stretching.
- Remote workers can also take a short walk before logging into their computers. A morning walk is not only good for cardiovascular health, but studies show that it also helps with our sense of belonging (by seeing people in our neighbourhood) and resets the circadian rhythm that helps us sleep at night.
MOVE MORE IN YOUR FREE TIME:
- While light-intensity exercise is beneficial (a slow stroll or pottering around the house), moderate-intensity activity is when we start to get more significant benefits. So when you go for a walk, make it a brisk stroll (allow yourself to get slightly out of breath) to make the most of it.
- Make like the healthiest people in the world, and walk to the store and carry your groceries instead of driving. (These healthy communities are more likely to use their own bodies rather than modern conveniences for many household chores and tasks.)
- Remember that gardening, pottering around the house, and cleaning count as physical activity too. So if you don’t mind hoovering, don’t get a robot vacuum.
- Challenge yourself to stand up when you’re scrolling on your phone, or use an App Blocker to monitor your screen time - you can monitor your app usage and block your most-used apps after a specific time limit.
- Find activities you enjoy and look forward to - cycling and walking in nature, hiking with friends, or challenging yourself with new training like rock climbing or learning salsa dancing.
If you want to get the whole family involved in moving more, The Heart Foundation has some great tips on how to sit less and move more for people of all ages (including the kids).
The Miracle Pill by Peter Walker is also a great book focusing on the whole area of physical activity.
Key takeaways: Are you moving enough?
1. The paramount consideration is just to get out of the chair more often, including standing up and moving at a light pace.
2. Focus on your movement across the entire day, not just 30-60 minute increments set aside for exercise.
3. Look at your current daily routine and design your environment for movement. What small changes can you make that naturally nudge you to move more during the day?
Reference - Evaluating the effectiveness of organisational-level strategies with or without an activity tracker to reduce office workers’ sitting time: a cluster-randomised trial Authors: CL Brakenridge, BS Fjeldsoe, DC Young, EAH Winkler, DW Dunstan, LM Straker, GN Healy