Sitting too much has been linked to almost every chronic health issue, both physical and mental. According to one 2019 study, any period of sitting for longer than 30 minutes increases the risk of death.
That’s pretty heavy, but here’s the good news: replacing that 30 minutes of sitting with 30 minutes of any kind of movement decreases the risk of death. In the study, a half hour of light-intensity exercise lowered the risk by 17 percent, and a half hour of moderate-to-vigorous exercise decreased it by 34 percent.
How About Two Minutes of Exercise?
Of course, if 30 minutes of exercise was easy, we’d all be doing it. We all know exercise is good for us, and most of us still struggle to make time for it.
But what about two minutes? Who doesn’t have two minutes to spare?
This is the idea behind “exercise snacks”–small, easily doable bits of movement that break up sitting times.
Exercise snacks can get your muscles activated and the blood moving–and 20-60 seconds multiple times a day can make a difference, sometimes rivaling a workout. Best of all, exercise snacks are free and require no equipment. You can also do them anywhere, and the shorter the snack, the harder it is to claim you don’t have time!
The secret is not to try to increase exercise time, but to interrupt sedentary time.
You could, for example, do one of these every half hour or so:
- Walk up and down the stairs once or twice
- Do a handful of push-ups.
- Dance around the office to your favorite song
- Do one to three sun salutations
- Take the long way to the bathroom
In doing so, you won’t just stack up movement throughout the day–you’ll interrupt those sedentary periods that are so harmful.
Looking for ideas? This collection of videos is focused on “random acts of exercise”–short movements you can easily do anytime, anywhere.
(Pro tip: it’s easy to get absorbed in what you’re doing. We recommend using a timer at work to remind yourself to simply get up and move–just for a minute or two!
At last, snacking is good for you!