To reduce the harmful health effects of sitting, walk for 5 minutes every half hour. This is the main finding of a new study published by researchers in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. The researchers asked 11 healthy middle-aged and older adults to sit in a laboratory for 8 hours — which represents a normal workday — over five separate days. On one of those days, participants sat for a full 8 hours with only short breaks to go to the bathroom.
On the other days, they tested various strategies to break up sitting with some light walking. For example, on one testing day, participants walked for one minute every half hour. On another day, they walked for five minutes every hour. The goal was to find the least amount of walking that could offset the harmful health effects of sitting. In particular, they measured changes in blood sugar levels and blood pressure, which are important risk factors for heart disease.
They found that walking lightly for 5 minutes every half hour was the only strategy that significantly reduced blood sugar levels compared to sitting all day. Specifically, walking for 5 minutes every half hour reduced post-meal blood sugar spikes by nearly 60%. This strategy also lowered blood pressure by four to five points compared to sitting all day. However, walking for shorter and less frequent durations also improved blood pressure. Even a light walk for just one minute every hour reduces blood pressure by five points.
