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How to move more at work without getting side-eyed

Latest evidence

Compared to our hunter gatherer ancestors, the modern humans have become quite sedentary. Sedentary behaviour, defined as any activity done sitting, lying or reclining with low energy expenditure, occurs across the day and across multiple settings, including the workplace. However, this increase in prolonged, uninterrupted sedentary behaviour can have multiple detrimental impacts in both the short and long term, with high levels of sedentary time associated with cardiometabolic disease, earlier deaths due to any cause, cancer, diabetes, obesity, hypertension and more! Given over 80% of Australian workers report sitting for at least some of their workday, effective workplace interventions that break up sedentary time are needed to protect workers against the many health risks of prolonged sedentary time. Are bodyweight resistance exercise breaks the solution? One possible intervention is the use of resistance exercise. Laboratory studies have shown that resistance exercises that can be done at the desk, like calf raises and half squats, can be beneficial for glucose control. Rogers and colleagues took this concept into the workplace in their recent study that investigated the acceptability and feasibility of bodyweight resistance exercise breaks in the work place to reduce sedentary behaviour. The effects of these breaks on perceived sleepiness,…

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What strategies work to sit less and move more?

BeUpstanding Stories

What do you do to sit less and move more? Do you fill up your water bottle regularly? Take a stretching break? Have lunch away from your computer? As part of the BeUpstanding program, staff are asked to indicate the extent to which they took part in a range of 10 sit less strategies and 11 move more strategies in the past month, with response options ranging from never to nearly always/always. Staff could also respond not applicable, with the list of 21 strategies informed by our previous research. Dr Sam Stephens from the BeUpstanding team recently presented on some of the findings from this strategy data and how it related to behaviour change at the 3rd Asia-Pacific Society for Physical Activity (ASPA) Conference in Wellington, New Zealand. She was able to show that BeUpstanding strategies genuinely do help staff to sit less and move more. What was found to be of particular benefit was: doing a wide range of strategies performing strategies regularly, and choosing highly effective strategies, with some strategies really punching above their weight! In her presentation, Dr Stephens showcased the popularity of each strategy against its effectiveness at helping staff to sit less and move more.…

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Finding your ‘why’ for moving more at work

Latest evidence

This won’t be like most articles that you’re used to reading online. You won’t find 6 quick steps to feeling more motivated to reduce sedentary time at work. You won’t see expert secrets that promise “one strategy to unlocking your inner drive”. What you might find is something more valuable to you as an individual. Because the reality is, we’re all just too different for there to be one motivation to change. No one thinks and experiences the world quite like you do. What motivates you to move more at work, may not be the same thing that motivates your colleague, team leader or morning coffee buddy. In a world where we’re loaded with information about what we should and shouldn’t do, we could probably do with a bit more “why” time. So, we’ve parked the “what” for now and instead focused on ways for you to consider your own internal motivators. This is a way to help you to find your own, individual ‘why’ for reducing the sedentary time and moving more at work. If you’re still reading, it’s likely that you’re thinking about changing your sedentary time at work. Or at the very least, you’re curious about whether…

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Sitting time under A-REST for police employees in the UK

Latest evidence

Police officers and staff are a workplace population with unique challenges when it comes to reducing time spent sitting. A recent study conducted at the Bedfordshire Police Headquarters in the UK investigated whether it is feasible to implement an intervention to reduce and break up prolonged sitting time among police employees. What was the intervention? The A-REST intervention (Activity to Reduce Excessive Sitting Time) was a multi-component, 8-week program informed by the Behaviour Change Wheel. It included components such as an education session, behaviour change booklet, electronic prompts, health champion, weekly emails, a smartphone app for self-monitoring, and individual feedback on behaviour. Additionally, a stand-out component was a team competition with a trophy.  Winners of the trophy were calculated by using a series of QR codes posted throughout the research site which participants scanned to log breaks from sitting. This study is the first of its kind to use such a competition using QR codes as a tool to reduce and break up sitting time. Interestingly, A-REST did not utilise sit-stand desks, despite these becoming very common in workplace sitting interventions. While feasibility and acceptability of the intervention were the primary goals, workplace and daily sitting, standing and steps, cardiometabolic…

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Economics of Sedentary Behaviour

Latest evidence

It is well established that sedentary behaviour is an established risk factor for several diseases; however, its economic impacts are less understood. Published in Preventative Medicine last week, a paper titled “Economics of sedentary behaviour: A systematic review of cost of illness, cost-effectiveness, and return on investment studies” is the first review that has investigated the broader economic credentials of Sedentary Behaviour. The authors, Nguyen P et al., reviewed the literature on the economic costs associated with excessive sedentary behaviour and the cost-effectiveness of interventions targeting sedentary time. The review identified nine articles. Three reported healthcare costs associated with excessive sedentary time, and found that healthcare costs associated with excessive sedentary time as reported in cost of illness studies were substantial. However, none explored non-health sector costs. In the six articles which were economic evaluations of interventions targeting sedentary behaviour, they adopted a societal perspective. However, costs included differed depending on the intervention context. The authors concluded that excessive sedentary behaviour is likely associated with excess healthcare costs and of the limited interventions targeting sedentary behaviour reduction that have been economically evaluated, most were likely to be cost-effective. The most promising interventions from a cost-effectiveness perspective were those that included…

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Can Too Much Sitting be Contributing to Depression?

Bite size facts

A recent blog post titled ‘Can Too much Sitting be Contributing to Depression’ was published by the Sedentary Behaviour Research Network. It looked at the relationship between sitting and depression and reported that the research seems to support the idea that excessive sitting is positively correlated with an increase in depression. It also highlighted two distinct types of sedentary sitting behaviour: mentally passive (ex. Watching television) and mentally active (ex.reading or driving), and that it is the mentally passive sitting that could have deleterious health effects. You can read the full blog here.

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How does the pandemic ‘encourage’ sedentary behaviour?

Latest evidence

The pandemic had certainty hit the world and changed everyone’s habits and routines. To slow down the spread, and prevent worsening of the impacts, the governments of many countries implemented tight restrictions on movement and socialisation. Although these measurements are highly effective and important in allaying the spread of COVID-19, the limitations, which included restrictions to outside activities and social distancing, have resulted in the adoption of unhealthy behaviours in large segments of the population, including increases in sedentary time and decreases in physical activity. During the highest level of lockdown, travel limitations were also imposed. For example, this rule was implemented in the Greater Sydney where movements were restricted to within 5 kilometres from home when COVID-19 cases were at its peak. This restriction likely reduced time spent in the incidental movements, like going to the shops, that are part of normal life. Exacerbating this, studies showed that people also tend to spend more time at home on activities that minimised movements, such as using electronics which further increase excessive screen time. For example, the average sitting time in the US increased by 3 times to 6 hours per day since the declaration of the pandemic.  Furthermore, as BeUpstanding’s…

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Sitting less and moving more for heart health

Key resources

A new article by two of the BeUpstanding academic team – Professor David Dunstan and Professor Neville Owen – highlights the importance of supporting adults to both move more and sit less for their cardiovascular health – something that the BeUpstanding team strongly endorse! The article, published in Nature Reviews Cardiology, provides a great summary of the effects of sedentary behaviour on health outcomes. As can be seen in the Table from the article, there is now strong evidence that there is a dose-response relationship of sedentary behaviour with increased risk for all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality, as well as incident cardiovascular disease. The article also summarises the potential mechanisms for these relationships, highlighting that it is likely that sedentary time acts across multiple biological systems to regulate blood pressure, vascular function, blood glucose and brain blood flow. Importantly, there is emerging evidence to suggest that regular physical activity interruptions to sitting time, such as through simple resistance activities like going up onto your toes or going for a short walk, may help to attenuate these detrimental processes. A number of key points were highlighted: Both physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease…

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Thirty minute’s exercise won’t counteract sitting all day, but adding light movement can help

Latest evidence

It is recommended that we do at least 30 minutes of exercise a day – or 150 minutes a week – to stay healthy. But 30 minutes accounts for just 2% of the day. And many of us spend most of the rest of the time sitting – which can adversely impact on our health. A new study has revealed that 30 minutes of daily exercise is not enough to overcome the health risks of sitting too much, but also revealed that with the right balance of time spent exercising and moving, it may be possible to counteract the negatives of too much sitting. For this research the authors combined data from six different studies from the UK, US and Sweden looking at a total of over 130,000 adults. Each of the studies used a physical activity monitor (like a Fitbit) to measure a person’s movements and sitting time throughout the day. Each study then followed the participants for an average of four to 14 years to track whether any participants died. The researchers found that for those people who spent less than seven hours a day sitting, doing 30 minutes of daily exercise decreased the risk of early death…

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UK survey highlights the impact of the lockdown on sedentary time

News and Events

The annual Active Sitting Survey® run in the UK found that 47% of office workers surveys spent nearly their whole working day (7+ hours) sedentary, up from 26% pre-pandemic. Two thirds of respondents also indicated that their workday sitting time had increased during lockdown. Active Working have been carrying out the annual survey of over 1000 participants since 2015. The survey also looked specifically at prolonged sedentary time, finding that 51% of public sector staff said they spend at least 90 minutes at a time seated each day compared to 39% of private sector colleagues. However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom with 30% of respondents indicating that their boss cared about their health “very much”, up from 16% the previous year. The full press release can be found here.

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