Despite hyperbolic headlines, sitting is not the new smoking. And standing desks have not and will not revolutionize anything. But there is a problem related to sitting for the majority your day, which overwhelmingly affects people who do computer-based jobs and certainly a majority of people who work remotely.
Gretchen Reynolds at The Washington Post summarized new research on this topic well in a recent article about active couch potatoes, or people who do exercise in one or two bursts in a day but spend the rest of their time inactive. In a nutshell: Working out for 30 minutes per day isn't enough to counteract sitting and sleeping the other 23.5 hours per day. The study of 3,702 Finns found that those who worked out diligently for 30 minutes per day but spent the rest of their time sitting and sleeping had elevated blood sugar, cholesterol, and body fat.
To break the cycle of sitting still all day, you first have to think about "activity" a little differently and then how to make a change that will stick.
Why We Sit
"Active couch potato" isn't a new term. It goes back to at least 2010, when researchers first started understanding what's wrong with the knowledge worker lifestyle, even for those who do in fact exercise.
Neither the duration or frequency of the exercise is the problem. The problem is the inactivity. Working out is still good for you; being inactive for too long is what's bad.
The Hygiene Analogy
Often when I write about personal productivity or being organized, I make analogies to hygiene. Hygiene comes from doing some activity or action consistently and regularly. And it must be that way.
Take brushing your teeth. Most people follow the rule to brush their teeth twice per day for two minutes at a time. That's different from brushing your teeth for four minutes once per day, or 28 minutes once per week. Or what if you brushed your teeth only once per month for 120 minutes? The number of minutes isn't the only thing that matters—it's the schedule, including both the interval and frequency.
Another way to think about it, which might in fact be more accurate, is that you should never go more than about 12 hours without brushing your teeth. How much continuous non-teeth brushing time should your teeth endure?
I've read sleep research that does the same flipping of what we usually talk about to focus instead on the reverse. Instead of saying how often or how long a person should sleep, some researchers talk about wakefulness. Having too many consecutive wakeful hours negatively affects your health.
How Long Can You Be Inactive Before It's a Problem?
In the same way, we can ask how long can I be inactive before it becomes a problem? Put aside your 30 or 60 minutes of exercise per day and instead think about how long you stay relatively still in one position.
As far as I know, there isn't one answer to how long a person can sit still, in repeated sessions over months and years, before it becomes a problem.
An ergonomics expert I interviewed said his research suggests that people who work in a seated position should move every 20 minutes. "[T]ake a short break where you stand up, stretch out a little bit, maybe for a minute or two. Or even better, walk and make a cup of tea or coffee," Alan Hedge told me. But Hedge, professor emeritus at Cornell University, didn't study heart disease or body fat. His groups were looking for ways to prevent injuries and improve circulation, comfort, and performance.
More pertinently, moving for one to two minutes every 20 minutes sounds ridiculously optimistic for anyone who finds a flow state in their work. It's perhaps why the Pomodoro Technique (which advocates working uninterrupted for 25 minutes and then taking a break of two to five minutes) fell out of favor by some who now prefer more flexible "focus sprints" that use the same general principles but extend the work time to about 50 minutes.
Again, those techniques were designed to help people focus and be productive, not provide health benefits.
Standing Desks Are Not the Solution
Standing desks and sit-stand desks are not a solution to the problem at hand. When you stand to work, you are still inactive. Standing and not moving is not any better than sitting and not moving.
When I interviewed Alan Hedge, he explained that standing desks come with a whole set of other problems. The biggest one is that the ideal amount of time to stand while working—about eight minutes—is much less than most people assume. After about eight minutes, people start to lean, and that's not good. If you have a standing desk and enjoy using it, fine. But don't convince yourself that merely standing is a replacement to getting movement. It's not.
The Tech That Tells Us to Move
No shortage of tech devices and software have been designed to remind us to move. The problem is people get annoyed by them.
Your fitness tracker or smartwatch might buzz once an hour or so with a move alert, for example. I have never met a single person who could abide by that over a long period of time, and plenty of people simply disable this irksome feature.
Break apps, such as Time Out for Mac (free), intentionally lock you out of your computer every so many minutes at intervals you set. The people who swear by Time Out and similar apps often have had a work-related injury and desperately need to stretch their wrists or refocus their eyes in order to heal and not be in pain. I've never had such injuries, and every time I've tried to use Time Out, I end up postponing the break indefinitely. Taking a forced break at a fairly arbitrary moment is supremely interruptive. It's also different from the Pomodoro Technique in that to delay a break, you have to attend to the app (annoying), whereas with Pomodoro you can simply finish your thought before coming to a hault.
Healing Habits
In my experience studying personal productivity and writing about remote work, successes are rooted in habits, not technology. Technological tools can act as cues or guideposts to help you take breaks, but if the habit of taking breaks isn't there, the tools don't work. The habit must take precedence over the tool.
When you're in the groove of working, what actually makes you stop and take a break that involves movement? A crying child, sure. Tedium sometimes. What about needing to use the bathroom? One trick I mention in my book about remote work for people who have a hard time remembering to take breaks is to fill a large jug of water and make sure you drink it all by a certain time. Then when you have to pee, you will most definitely get up and move.
You'd have to drink a lot of water in a day for that trick to be sufficient on its own, so you need more habits that help you regularly get out of your chair. Some ideas: Check your mailbox once a day; if you have a dog, add another short walk to your routine; or find a simple chore that you can do daily, like watering or pruning plants, refilling a bird feeder, prepping a lunch an hour or so before you actually eat it. If you're an on-location employee, make a trip to the water cooler; clean or tidy up your workspace at the same time every day; or just take a lap around the building after every meeting.
The most important part is to make these actions habits. You have to do them daily for them to stick.
Movement and Balance for Your Health and Happiness
Figuring out how to not be inactive for long stretches of time is crucial to your health and happiness. If you aren't healthy, neither you nor your employer benefits, so it's in both your interests to find small movements of activity throughout the day to keep you well.
Finding a happy and healthy balance between work and personal life is hard. Remember, though, that your work is a marathon, not a sprint. If you don't take care of yourself and burn out early or have increasing health problems at a young age, no one benefits. Be kind to yourself, put your health first, and find ways every day to take small actions toward those ends.
For more advice on healthy working, see our list of 20 tips for working from home.