You Need To Stand Up More Than Once An Hour

Time Newspaper 10/08/2023

The longer you sit each day, the worse the effect on your health, even if you find an hour out of your day to hit the gym. But while your fitness tracker or smartwatch may prompt you to stand up every hour it is probably not often enough. Research at Glasgow Caledonian University found that setting an alarm to remind yourself to stand up every 30 minutes could reduce sitting time by 40 minutes a day, thereby cutting your risk of conditions such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Better still, get up and walk for five minutes every half an hour, a practice shown to reduce blood sugar spikes by 58 per cent compared with sitting all day in a recent study from Columbia University. “Prolonged sitting is bad news and the more often you can break it up with activity, the better,” Wong says.