Most advice about moving more at work assumes you have a flexible diary, a private office and a permissive employer.
If you have back-to-back video calls, an open-plan floor and a lunch break that mostly doesn’t happen, that advice is not for you — so you conclude the whole idea isn’t for you either.
This is written as a menu instead. Options sorted by what you actually have available: how much time, how much space, how much privacy. Pick whatever fits. Nothing here needs kit, a gym or anyone’s permission.
But first, the one piece of research worth knowing, because it tells you what to aim at.
The Dose That Came Out On Top
A study led by Keith Diaz at Columbia tested something most research doesn’t: not whether breaking up sitting helps, but how much and how often.
Eleven adults in their forties, fifties and sixties sat for eight-hour days under five different conditions — one minute of walking every 30 minutes, one minute every 60, five minutes every 30, five minutes every 60, and no walking at all.
The winner was five minutes of walking every 30 minutes. That combination produced a 58% reduction in blood sugar spikes after eating compared with sitting all day.
Three details make this more useful than the headline:
Frequency mattered more than total volume. Walking every 60 minutes — whether for one minute or five — produced no blood sugar benefit at all. The thirty-minute interval was doing the work.
Even one minute every 30 helped, modestly, for blood sugar. So the short option isn’t nothing.
Blood pressure responded to everything. All the walking conditions lowered blood pressure by around 4 to 5 mmHg versus sitting all day — a drop the lead author compared to what you’d expect from six months of daily exercise.
And mood improved and fatigue dropped under every regimen except the smallest one.
Two honest caveats: this was a small study of eleven people, and it measured short-term markers rather than long-term outcomes. But it’s the most specific answer available to “how often should I get up?”, and the answer is roughly every half hour.
Now, the menu.
If You Have 30 Seconds and No Privacy
For the open-plan floor, the shared office, the moment between calls.
Stand up and sit down five times. Nothing looks unusual about standing up.
Calf raises while the kettle boils or while you’re at the printer.
Roll your shoulders backwards slowly, five times. Reach both arms overhead once, properly, as far as they’ll go.
Turn your head fully to look over each shoulder. Most desk workers have quietly lost some of that range.
Stand up to take a phone call. Nobody has ever questioned this.
If You Have 2 Minutes
Walk to the furthest loo, or the furthest kitchen. The single easiest habit to build, because the trip was happening anyway.
Take the stairs one flight, up or down.
Walk the length of the office and back, twice.
Step outside the door for air. Two minutes of daylight also helps your sleep that night, which is not a trivial side benefit.
If You Have 5 Minutes
This is the target dose, so protect these where you can.
A lap of the building, or the block.
A stairwell trip — down and back up.
A proper reset: stand, walk, reach overhead, rotate through your spine, roll your shoulders, take a few unhurried breaths.
Walk while you think. Reading a document, mulling a problem, or listening to a call you don’t need to be on camera for.
If You Have a Meeting
Take audio-only calls walking. This is the highest-value change available to most desk workers and costs nothing. If your calendar is full of calls, your calendar is also full of walking opportunities.
Suggest a walking meeting for one-to-ones. Easier than it sounds and usually well received.
Stand for part of any meeting you’re in. Once one person does it, it stops being odd.
Build in a five-minute buffer by scheduling 25- and 50-minute meetings rather than 30 and 60. Some organisations do this by default. If yours doesn’t, you can still do it in your own calendar.
If You Have a Lunch Break
Leave the building. Even fifteen minutes.
Walk after eating, specifically. Post-meal walking has a measurable effect on blood sugar, and it’s the moment when the benefit is greatest.
Eat somewhere other than your desk, which forces a walk at both ends.
If You Work From Home
Home working removes the commute, the walk to the station, the trip to a colleague’s desk and the walk out for lunch. That’s a substantial amount of incidental movement gone, and nothing replaces it automatically.
Build a fake commute. Ten minutes’ walk before you start and after you finish. It bookends the day and helps with switching off — which matters more than people expect when your office is your house.
Use the stairs deliberately. Go up for something between calls.
Do the laundry or dishwasher between meetings rather than in one evening block.
Work in more than one place. Kitchen counter for a call, desk for focused work. Variety of position matters as much as any individual posture.
Get outside once during daylight, particularly in winter.
If You’re on the Move Already
Not everyone sits. If you’re teaching, nursing, on a shop floor or in a trade, your issue is usually sustained standing rather than sitting, and the advice inverts: sit when you legitimately can, vary tasks rather than doing one for hours, and use breaks to get weight off your feet rather than standing somewhere else.
What About a Standing Desk?
Useful, and frequently oversold. Standing still for hours brings its own problems — aching legs, low back discomfort, foot pain. The benefit comes from alternating, not from standing all day.
If you have one, aim to switch every 30 to 45 minutes. If you don’t, you’re not missing the main event: getting up and moving regularly matters more than what you do between the getting-ups.
Making It Actually Happen
Attach it to something existing. After you send an email, refill your water, finish a call. Habits stick to other habits far better than to good intentions.
Set a repeating reminder for the first fortnight until the rhythm establishes itself.
Make it social. A colleague who also gets up makes it normal rather than eccentric.
Lower the bar on bad days. Thirty seconds counts. The all-or-nothing framing is what kills this.
When Symptoms Need More Than Movement Breaks
Getting up regularly helps a lot of desk-related aches. Some things need proper assessment:
Pain that persists for weeks despite changes. Pins and needles, numbness or weakness in your arms or hands, particularly if it wakes you or affects your grip. Neck pain with headaches, dizziness or visual disturbance. Back pain with leg symptoms below the knee. Any pain following an injury.
And, urgently: numbness in the groin or inner thighs, new bladder or bowel control problems, or weakness in both legs.
The Realistic Version
Five minutes every 30 is the target. Most people won’t hit it most days, and that’s fine — the research also found that even the smaller doses did something, and that people were far more willing to sustain short breaks over the long run.
The gap that matters isn’t between a perfect routine and a good one. It’s between getting up regularly and not getting up at all.
If Something Already Hurts
Movement breaks are prevention. If you’re already dealing with a persistent ache, that’s worth looking at properly.
Chadwick’s Physiotherapy offers a free discovery visit at no cost and no obligation. You’ll get an assessment of how you’re moving, a clear explanation of what’s driving your symptoms, and practical changes that fit the working day you actually have.