{"id":552471,"date":"2026-06-24T23:37:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T23:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/552471\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T23:37:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T23:37:15","slug":"five-minute-walk-offsets-the-harm-of-sitting-too-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/552471\/","title":{"rendered":"Five-minute walk offsets the harm of sitting too long"},"content":{"rendered":"

A five-minute \u201cexercise snack\u201d every hour can offset the damage of sitting down for long periods, researchers have said.<\/p>\n

Walking or moving for five minutes<\/a> at regular intervals boosted mood, reduced fatigue, and did not affect work performance, a large study revealed.<\/p>\n

The health benefits of getting up from an office desk every so often were already known, but this was the first study to test how often five-minute walking breaks<\/a> should be taken and the respective effect.<\/p>\n

Authors, led by Columbia University in New York, said that adults in high-income countries now spend 11 to 12 hours per day sitting down or \u201csedentary\u201d<\/a>, which equates to \u201cthree-quarters of the waking day\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cExcessive sedentariness has emerged as a significant public health concern that incurs increased risk of many chronic conditions, poorer mental health and mortality and poses a substantive economic burden to healthcare systems,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n

Sitting for prolonged periods is thought to have a negative effect on the lower limbs because of the reduced activity in the skeletal muscles and arteries.<\/p>\n

However, moving at regular periods can undo or prevent these damaging effects by improving blood flow and reactivating the body\u2019s metabolic processes, such as using fat and glucose for energy.<\/p>\n

\u2018Improve psychosocial well-being\u2019<\/p>\n

The researchers said their results suggested \u201cthat brief, regular movement breaks<\/a> (i.e., interruptions to prolonged sitting achieved by walking, such as a five-minute walk every half-hour) can counteract the harmful cardiometabolic effects of prolonged sedentary behaviour and improve psychosocial well-being\u201d.<\/p>\n

To test the theory, they examined data from 11,484 people taking part in a US nationwide challenge aimed at moving more by undertaking little movement breaks.<\/p>\n

People followed their usual routine for seven days, then chose five-minute walking breaks either every 30 minutes, every 60 minutes, or every two hours for 14 consecutive days.<\/p>\n

During the 21 days in total, people filled in questionnaires on their fatigue, mood and work performance.<\/p>\n

A random sample of 1,200 full-time employees received five text messages every day at 9am, noon, 3pm, 6pm and 9pm to assess the immediate effect of movement breaks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A five-minute \u201cexercise snack\u201d every hour can offset the damage of sitting down for long periods, researchers have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[278],"tags":[16282,18,539,525,135,1695,19,17,167,5,1702,172075],"class_list":["post-552471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-british-heart-foundation","tag-eire","tag-exercise","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-heart-disease","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-news","tag-standard","tag-us-content"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116807719294707654","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}