Whether you’re in the office or at home, sitting down at a desk all day isn’t ideal. We’re constantly being told how bad it is to remain sedentary for long periods of time – so much so that we’ve developed standing desks, watches that alert us when it’s time to move and an obsession with our step counts. 

New research, however, claims that it’s incredibly easy to offset the damage done by our desk jobs. It’s found that just 15 minutes of exercise is enough to reduce the risks of sitting still for too long. Researchers from Taiwan studied 481,688 participants for 13 years, during which time 26,257 of the subjects died. People were split into three groups: those whose jobs involved ‘mostly sitting’, ‘mostly non-sitting’ and a mix of the two.

They also tracked the amount of  ‘leisure-time physical activity’ undertaken. Distressingly, they found that those who sat for most of the day had a 34% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than those engaged in ‘non-sitting work’.

But when researchers looked at recreational activity, they found that people with sedentary jobs who did at least 15 minutes of exercise a day saw a reduction in mortality risk similar to those who had non-seated jobs.

The study concluded that “alternating between sitting and non-sitting at work, as well as an extra 15 to 30 minutes per day of leisure-time physical activity, attenuated the harms of prolonged occupational sitting.”

In other words, it takes next to no time to improve your health outcomes.

This isn’t the first study to suggest that a relatively small amount of exercise can wield huge benefits for desk workers. Boston University School of Medicine previously found that doing moderate-to-vigorous exercise improved health more effectively than trying to sitting less at work.

That study monitored how sedentary 2,000 people were – clocking their step count and moderate-to-vigorous activity levels. Eight years later, participants underwent the same tests. Researchers found that there was a correlation between improved cardio-respiratory fitness and recovery and an increase in all three health behaviours – exercising, walking and less sitting. However, those who regularly performed moderate-to-vigorous activity were fitter than those who simply stood and walked.

Both of these studies throw questions on the whole ‘move more, sit less’ rhetoric which can often make those of us without a standing desk feel anxious.

“People throw around guidelines like you have to do 10,000 steps a day and do cardio and do resistance training and stand up every 30 minutes – the anxiety of needing to do all of it is probably worse for your health than the actual sitting,” says Bryna Chrismas, exercise physiologist and associate professor in exercise science at Qatar University.

“There’s going to be some risk in terms of your mortality to sitting for eight hours or so a day. But, we also need to stop scaring people into thinking that just because they have a desk job, nothing will save them.” 

In fact, the Boston University paper suggested that those with a high number of daily steps or who engaged in vigorous exercise still improved their fitness regardless of whether or not they were sedentary for the rest of the day. Focusing on just one goal rather than constantly worrying about your activity is enough to support your body and mind. 

The Taiwanese study suggests exercising for at least 15 minutes, while the Boston research found that increasing your moderate-to-vigorous activity by 17 minutes, walking an extra 4,312 steps or reducing your sedentary time by 249 minutes a day improved cardiovascular fitness by 5%. That’s proof of the impact of a high heart rate – 15 minutes of vigorous movement is a much more attainable goal than standing up for an extra four hours a day.

That’s not far off the NHS recommendation that adults do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity a week. Break that down and that amounts to 21 minutes a day.

Let’s talk about what exactly moderate-vigorous activity is, though. According to the NHS, moderate activity is getting your heart rate up to a point where you can talk but not sing. They suggest brisk walking, riding a bike and dancing. Vigorous activity is just slightly more intense: you probably can’t easily hold a conversation during it. Activities such as running, swimming, uphill or fast bike riding and even walking up the stairs count.

The takeaway? You can stop stressing about your work-activity balance. Sitting down all day isn’t joyous, nor the most health-improving activity, but you don’t need to be thrashing yourself in the gym for hours and hitting five figure step counts every day just to look after yourself. Instead, try to prioritise a vigorous workout and, if you can, a lunchtime walk. Improving your health has never been simpler. 

Images: Getty