Five simple ways to stand up more during your workday.

Five simple ways to stand up more during your workday.

Experts call sitting the new smoking. That’s because sitting for long periods of time can have a negative impact on your health – even if you get enough exercise after your working day is finished.
Throwing your office chair out of the window could be a solution, but there are simpler ways to move a little bit more.

1 Get up, stand up
Make a quick list of your daily tasks and note which position you’re in for each activity. Are you sitting all day? Brainstorm realistic ways to do some of those tasks standing up. For example, ask co-workers if they’re game for stand-up meetings, or stand up to read through emails.

2 Set a daily step goal
The gold standard is 10,000 per day, but if you’re nowhere near that now, you’ll want to build gradually. Buy a fitness tracker or pedometer to keep track of your score. Get all your colleagues a cup of coffee and walk to the coffee machine several times, choose stairs over elevators and park in the last row in the parking lot.

3 Follow the 25-5 rule
Have you ever heard of the Pomodoro Technique? With this time management technique from the 80s you work much more efficiently. It promotes a work-break cycle of 25 minutes of work followed by a five-minute break. The same trick applies here: For every 25 minutes that you sit, move for five minutes. Mix things up with your movement options. Walk around, or do a few standing stretches. Set an alarm to help you remember.

4 Want to check your Facebook? Movement comes first!
Most likely, you are checking your e-mail and social media several times every hour. Promise yourself to perform 10 reps of your various exercises every time you check your feeds. Okay, a complete fitness routine might be quite odd with your colleagues around, but chair squats are totally accepted.

5 Be balanced
Standing desks are a good way to sit less, but you’ll need to strengthen your core muscles to avoid sinking into your hips. Another way to take a good posture is to regularly swap your office chair for a skippy ball.