Katie Lawton, physiologist, on intense activity: “Exercise snacks work as a reminder to just get up and move every so often”

For millions of people in the United States and around the world, a sedentary lifestyle has become the norm — whether it’s sitting behind a desk all day for work, school, or screen‑based downtime. The mean daily duration of sedentary behavior is 7.7 hours among the American adult population. And that is not good news.

The hidden dangers of a long-term sedentary lifestyle

Maintaining a sedentary routine, with insufficient physical activity over a long period of time can have an adverse impact on our health. It is associated with wide-ranging health issues, metabolic disorders and increased mortality - conditions including cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis and cognitive impairment. Therefore, reducing sedentary behavior and at the same time increasing physical activity is crucial to look after your health and reduce the chance of developing serious illnesses.

However, many of us find ourselves in a Catch-22 situation - if you are sat behind a desk all day in an office job, you don’t get much of a chance to be physically active and after work, many of us just don’t have the time or the inclination to head to the gym.

Finding moments in the day for shorts bursts of exercise

The solution isn’t intense workouts or complicated routines. Instead, the focus is on regular, brief bursts of physical activity - known as ‘exercise snacks’ designed to counteract the effects of long hours in a chair. The idea is straightforward: small actions, repeated consistently - this will help to promote blood flow, flexibility as well as help our posture, reducing muscle stiffness.

Experts recommend a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise each week through regular ‘exercise snacks’. Just moving around vigorously for a minute or two at a time, several times a day can have a positive effect on your overall health and well-being.

Exercise physiologist Katie Lawton explains: “We’re sitting around a lot more, and exercise snacks work as a reminder to just get up and move every so often.”

A brief, two-minute period of high-intensity movement or exercise is enough - as long as do it at various points in your daily routine. For example, if you have some downtime during your shift, get some much-needed exercise in by walking up and down the stairs for a couple of minutes.

“Form your exercise around your day,” Lawton says. “The idea of exercise snacks can fit easily around your life, no matter how busy or stressed you are. It’s a very short time commitment.”

These exercise snacks might not seem like much physical activity, but it all adds up and will help to maintain your overall health over time.

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