From 9am to 5pm, my brain is hyper-active at work, but my body is mostly still. This isn’t unusual: According to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 60% of the average American has a sedentary or light-duty job and doesn’t spend much time lifting, standing, or walking.
But it’s really bad for our health: A 2024 study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that sitting for more than 11.6 hours a day increases the risk of death from any cause by 57%.
Countering these dire consequences of sitting all day is actually quite easy: A study published in 2023 found that just 20 minutes of exercise a day can offset the life-shortening effects of prolonged sitting, BI previously reported.
The BI Health team often writes about the benefits of physical activity so I decided to give it a try for myself.
Here’s what worked and what didn’t when I tried to reduce my sitting time at work for a week.
Take an “exercise snack” break every hour
When we get caught up in the flow of work, we forget to take breaks and exercise. Seraphina Kenny
An “exercise snack” is a short bout of intense exercise lasting 1-2 minutes. Research suggests that exercise snacks may improve endurance, prevent strokes, and reduce the risk of premature death from cardiovascular disease and cancer. Who doesn’t love snacks?
So I took a break every hour and did two minutes of squats, jumping jacks, and running up and down the stairs.
In practice, it didn’t work so well for me. First, it was hard to remember to stop every hour when I was engrossed in work. Even with reminders, I found it impossible to realistically stop every hour, especially when I had a deadline looming.
Also, working in an office is much harder than working at home. It’s hard to find space. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to be hunkered down in an open-plan WeWork. I also didn’t want to come back from the bathroom red and sweaty.
The Standing Conference has had mixed successes and failures
Standing/walking meetings were also easier at home than in the office: With a little effort, I was able to clear space on a bookshelf to hold a standing video conference, or listen to a company-wide live stream while walking around the block.
But standing up alone in a larger, in-person meeting would look odd. Researchers actually did a study on this in 2018, published in PLoS ONE, and found that people who stand up in meetings feel psychological discomfort and worry that they’re taking authority away from the meeting leader.
Standing during meetings in the office is weird, so I just stand when I work from home. Seraphina Kenney
Also, as a journalist, I do a lot of interviews, and during the interview I didn’t want to walk or stand because I need to give my full attention to the interviewee.
Lunch breaks are effective for long training sessions
Before starting this experiment, I had already tried a lunchtime workout, but decided to step it up a notch and add a Pilates workout during my hour-long break over two days.
I had to sacrifice some fun time chatting with my roommate over TikTok and eat lunch at my desk, but it helped break up my sitting time.
I also went to the grocery store on my lunch break one day. I live in London, so it’s not far to walk. This is a normal lunchtime activity for me, and I hope it will help me live longer. A 2023 study by researchers at the University of Sydney showed that vigorous exercise in daily life, such as carrying heavy shopping bags or climbing stairs, was associated with a lower risk of cancer.
Being in an office means you can walk up a flight of stairs to your space and get more activity into your day. Seraphina Kenny
Just going to the office reduces the amount of time I spend sitting.
Dr. Andrew Kaczynski, an associate professor at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health, said taking public transportation is an easy way to be more active during your workday, as your commute may involve walking to your stop and standing while riding the bus or train.
So my day is less sedentary even before I enter the office. It’s been brutally hot in London this week, but I’m glad to know that getting squashed by other commuters on the tube or walking drenched in sweat from the station is adding to my life expectancy.
When I’m in the office, I get up to grab a coffee (i.e. chat) with a colleague, walk to a conference room, walk to a nearby store to buy lunch, and (sometimes) climb four flights of stairs to our space, so I move around a lot more throughout the day than I do when I work from home.
Verdict
Maybe it would have extended my lifespan a bit, but I don’t think I could keep doing all of that. Doing jumping jacks every hour or standing up during meetings interrupted my workflow, made me self-conscious, and reduced my productivity.
But exercising on my lunch break, walking to the grocery store, and being more active at the office are all pretty sustainable, and I think they make my days more enjoyable and help me live longer.