Move More and Sit Less: How to Reduce Sedentary Time

Linda Trinh,PhD, FSBM – University of Toronto, Kinesiology and Physical Education; Dori Rosenberg, PhD, MPH, FSBM – Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute; Allyson Tabaczynski,MSc – University of Toronto, Kinesiology and Physical Education

 

In addition to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans (2^nd edition), the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Adults (18+) show what a healthy 24 hours looks like when it comes to physical activity, sedentary time, and sleep. There are many articles written by SBM’s expert authors on the topic of physical activity, including:

• ”I’m Ready to Start Exercise, but Where Do I Start?”
• How to Start (or Restart) Exercise
• 5 Easy Ways to Get More Active
• Physical Activity for Older Adults
• How to Create an Exercise Plan that Sticks.

Meeting Physical Activity Recommendations is Just One Step

While physical activity is essential to overall health, it’s just as important to moderate the amount of time spent sedentary (i.e. sitting). Small movement breaks throughout the day can do a lot to break up your sedentary time. Research shows that more time spent sedentary throughout the day is associated with increased risk and death from chronic disease (e.g., cardiovascular disease and cancer), weight gain and obesity, worse mental health, and reduced quality of life.

Sedentary time refers to long periods of time spent in a sitting, lying down, or reclining posture during your waking hours. This is often done for transportation, working, screen time (television and computer use), socialization and many other behaviors in everyday life.

While activities done being sedentary are unavoidable, reducing the amount of time in a sedentary state can support health and well-being.

Physical activity and reducing sedentary time are two different factors in overall health. Meeting the physical activity recommendations (i.e., 150 minutes/week of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity) does have a lot of positive health benefits, but this alone is not enough to prevent the negative effects of too much sedentary time.

“How Much Time Do I Spend Sedentary?”

To reduce your sedentary time, start by becoming aware of how much time you spend sitting. You might not even realize how much you are sitting throughout the day since it can be masked by the activities you are performing while sitting (e.g., work, television, socializing).

Reflect on your sedentary behavior over the past week to answer the following questions.

• On a typical day, what were you doing while you were sedentary? List all of the most common activities you performed while sedentary.
• On a typical day, how many hours per day are you spending sedentary?

Now that we know where you are performing most of your sedentary behavior, we can learn how to change those behaviors and incorporate more movement into different areas of your daily routine. You can replace your sedentary time with anything that will activate your muscles such as standing, stretching or light physical activity like walking.

How to Reduce Sedentary Time

At work

• If you sit a lot at work, you can try a standing desk.
• Use washrooms on a different floor or further away.
• If you are attending an online meeting or presentation with your video off, stand up, stretch, or walk around while listening.
• Go for a walk during your lunch break.
• Send things to print at a printer that is further away.
• Move your wastebasket away from you desk so you must get up to use it.
• Have walking meetings with your colleagues.
• Set reminders on your computer throughout the day to get up and move around (pro tip: we suggest having a reminder at least once every 30 minutes).
• Walk to a colleague’s desk instead of e-mailing/calling them.

At home

• Use a fitness tracker to monitor your sitting time. Some trackers can even send you inactivity alerts to remind you to move if you have been sitting too long. This article has some great tips on getting the most out of your fitness tracker.
• Set a kitchen timer to stand every 30 minutes for a few minutes.
• Stand or move while doing housework, chores, and cooking. Consider combing chores with seated tasks such as ironing while watching television.
• Stand up during commercial breaks while watching television or get up to change the channel.
• Walk to a neighbor’s house instead of calling/e-mailing them.
• Pace the sidelines at your grandchildren’s or child’s sporting games.
• Stand up to read the morning newspaper or stand up after reading a book chapter.
• Do small micro-workouts throughout the day.
• Schedule a walk in your day rather than wait to see where it will fit in.
• Pace while talking on the phone.
• Stand up every time you get or send a text message.
• Only watch television when it’s dark outside.

Commuting

• Instead of sitting, stand while on public transit.
• Take the stairs instead of an elevator/escalator if you can.
• Park further away from your destination to increase the distance you need to walk.
• Walk to do an errand or to work.

Be creative when thinking about your day to find ways you can move more and sit less!

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