Everyone knows they should get up more during the working day.
Almost nobody does, and it isn’t because the message hasn’t landed. It’s because there’s a specific, practical reason in the way — and generic advice never addresses the actual obstacle.
So here are the nine reasons we hear most, each taken seriously and answered properly.
“I go to the gym. I’m covered.”
This is the most common one, and the most important to address, because it feels like it should be true.
It isn’t, quite. Prolonged sitting is recognised as a health risk in its own right, associated with cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and raised blood pressure — and that association holds even in people who meet activity guidelines. Researchers describe this profile as the active couch potato: someone who exercises regularly and is nonetheless sedentary for the overwhelming majority of their waking hours.
The reason is mechanical. When you sit for hours without interruption, the large muscles of your legs and hips go quiet, circulation slows, and tissue held in one position for hours adapts to that position. An hour of exercise at 7am doesn’t change what happens between 9 and 5.
The response: keep the gym. Add frequency. They’re doing different jobs — and one of the researchers on the dose-finding work put it plainly: for optimal health you need to move regularly at work in addition to a daily exercise routine.
“I’m in back-to-back meetings all day.”
The response: your calendar is full of walking opportunities, not empty of them.
Take audio-only calls on your feet or on the move. If you don’t need to be on camera, you don’t need to be at your desk. For calls where you’re mostly listening, walking is entirely compatible with paying attention.
Where you control the invite, schedule 25 and 50 minutes instead of 30 and 60. Some organisations have made this the default precisely because it creates the gaps everyone needs.
And stand for part of any meeting you’re in. It takes one person to make it unremarkable.
“I work in an open-plan office. I’d look ridiculous.”
Fair, and this stops more people than any ergonomic factor.
The response: everything on the effective list is invisible. Standing up. Walking to the far kitchen. Taking the stairs. Standing for a phone call. Going to speak to someone rather than messaging them.
Nobody notices, or minds, someone getting up. What people notice is stretching routines at a desk — so don’t do those. Do the walking.
“I work from home and I never leave the house.”
Home working quietly removed a significant amount of movement that used to happen automatically: the commute, the walk to the station, the trip to a colleague’s desk, going out for lunch. Nothing replaced it.
The response: rebuild it deliberately. A ten-minute walk before you start and after you finish — a fake commute — restores some of what went and helps you switch off at the end of the day, which is its own problem when your office is your kitchen.
Use the stairs on purpose. Spread household tasks through the day rather than saving them. Work from more than one spot. Get outside once while it’s light.
“I genuinely don’t have time.”
The response: the effective dose is smaller than you think, and mostly consists of trips you were already making.
The most specific research available on this tested different amounts of walking through an eight-hour sitting day. Five minutes every 30 came out best. But even one minute of walking every 30 minutes produced a modest benefit for blood sugar — and every walking condition tested lowered blood pressure by roughly 4 to 5 mmHg compared with sitting all day.
You are already going to the loo, making coffee and moving between rooms. Going to the further one, or taking the stairs, costs almost no additional time.
“I have a standing desk, so I’m sorted.”
The response: standing desks are useful and routinely oversold.
Standing still for hours produces its own problems — leg ache, low back discomfort, foot pain — and standing is not the same as moving. The benefit comes from alternating positions rather than adopting a new permanent one.
Aim to switch every 30 to 45 minutes, and keep taking walking breaks regardless. A standing desk doesn’t replace getting up; it just changes what you’re doing while you stay put.
“My job is already physical. This doesn’t apply to me.”
Partly right, and the advice inverts rather than disappears.
If you’re on your feet all day — teaching, nursing, retail, hospitality, a trade — your problem is usually sustained standing on hard floors rather than sitting. Prolonged standing carries its own issues, including foot and leg discomfort and low back pain.
The response: sit when you legitimately can, rotate tasks rather than doing one thing for hours, use breaks to get weight off your feet rather than standing elsewhere, and pay attention to footwear. Variety is the goal in both directions.
“I keep forgetting.”
The most honest objection, and the most solvable.
The response: stop relying on remembering. Attach the movement to something that already happens — after every call ends, after you send a report, when you refill your water. Habits stick to existing habits far more reliably than to intentions.
Use a repeating reminder for the first couple of weeks until the rhythm establishes itself. Get a colleague doing it, which makes it social rather than eccentric.
And drop the all-or-nothing framing. Thirty seconds counts on a bad day. People who treat this as pass/fail stop within a fortnight.
“My employer won’t go for it.”
Often assumed and rarely tested.
The response: most of what’s described here requires no permission at all. Getting up, walking to the further kitchen, taking the stairs, standing for a call — none of that needs sign-off.
For the rest, the case is easier to make than people expect. Walking breaks in the dose-finding research were associated with reduced fatigue and improved mood, which is squarely an employer’s interest. Employers can be asked about sit-stand equipment, walking meetings, meeting-length defaults, and adjustments where you have a documented condition. In the UK, if you have a health condition affecting your work, reasonable adjustments are a legitimate conversation with your employer or occupational health.
The One That Isn’t an Objection
Sometimes the reason someone isn’t moving at work is that moving hurts.
That’s not a motivation problem and it doesn’t respond to better habits. Persistent neck, shoulder, back or wrist pain that’s been building for months needs assessing rather than working around — and “working around it” usually means moving less, which makes it worse.
Get it looked at if you have pain persisting for weeks despite changes; pins and needles, numbness or weakness in your arms or hands, particularly if it disturbs your sleep or affects your grip; neck pain with headaches or dizziness; or back pain with symptoms below the knee.
Urgently: numbness in the groin or inner thighs, new bladder or bowel problems, or weakness in both legs.
The Underlying Point
None of this is about becoming a different sort of person. It’s about interrupting long periods of stillness more often than you currently do — and almost every barrier above has a version that fits around the job you already have.
If It’s Pain Stopping You
Habits are the easy part when nothing hurts. If something does, that’s the thing to sort first.
Chadwick’s Physiotherapy offers a free discovery visit at no cost and no obligation. You’ll get a proper assessment of what’s going on, an explanation of why it’s happening, and practical changes that work with your actual job rather than an idealised one.