Often feeling sore and tired after hours sitting at my laptop, I wanted to see if the trend of ‘movement snacking’ would benefit my daily routine.
12:00, 21 Feb 2026
Getting any form of exercise can feel like a struggle for many Brits after a long day of work or running around after your busy family. Personally, the second I have finished work the only things I want to do is have a tasty meal and then curl up in my bed with a book.
While the NHS stating that adults between the ages of 19 to 64 should be aiming for at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes vigorous activity a week, honestly the thought at times can feel more like a chore – especially if you only have a little idea of what you need to be doing.
However, after spending hours sitting in front of a computer screen, I regularly feel the muscles in my shoulders and lower back beginning to hurt. On top of this, a wave of tiredness usually hits at some point in the afternoon which I need to battle through to try and stay productive.
Wanting to feel less achy and tired as I work I started searching for solutions, with one popular option on social media being ‘movement snacking’. Also known as ‘exercise snacking’, this is the idea of getting up throughout your work day and completing a series of stretches or physical movements for a few minutes.
Allowing you to have a short step away from your screen and get your body moving, this smaller burst of exercise is said to have a positive impact on your metabolic health – the body’s ability to store and use energy – and mayeb a wellbeing. Seeming like a much more manageable concept, I tried the exercise method throughout the week.
Starting with just getting up and doing some arm and leg stretches throughout the day, I started to add some quick cardio exercises to get the blood pumping through my body. None of these exercises need to be extreme, even just doing some calf raises while working can have a positive impact.
Wanting to make sure my muscles weren’t getting too tight I tended to do moves such as squats and lunges to get my hips moving, as well as rolling my hands, arms and shoulders to help them feel looser. For times I wanted to get my heart rate up a bit, I tried high knee movements and step out jumping jacks which seemed to do the trick.
Speaking to naturopathic nutritional therapy practitioner Claire Bairnes from Nutritionist Resource, she said: “For busy professionals especially, movement snacking is one of the most realistic ways to support both physical and mental health without adding another ‘task’ to the day.”
With most adults in the UK spending at least nine hours sitting per day, she explained that this level of sedentary time will be having a negative impact on our metabolic health, cardiovascular risk and overall wellbeing.
Thankfully, she added that a full gym session isn’t needed to offset this. She added: “Research looking at ‘movement snacks’ which are short, regular activity breaks, found that just light walking breaks can make a measurable difference.
“In particular, a small randomised crossover study in middle- and older-aged adults showed that taking a five-minute walking break every 30 minutes produced the greatest improvements in blood sugar control, while even smaller or less frequent breaks still helped lower blood pressure.”
Get more Daily Record exclusives by signing up for free to Google’s preferred sources. Click HERE
In all honesty I did feel a bit silly at first when I started movement snacking. However, by the end of the week it felt like second nature to get up and move around a bit. The second I started to feel a sore muscle or tiredness, I would start doing a series of random exercises for a minute or so.
This helped me feel revitalised and ready to crack on with some work. I also feel like I may have felt the effects more this week as I have been run down with a cold. Making sure I was up and moving throughout the day helped combat some levels of stuffiness I was experiencing and helped me regain my focus.
Lauren Wallis, Functional Nutritional Therapist, also argued that getting up throughout the day could have more of an impact on your health and wellbeing than a daily gym session would.
She explained how sedentary behaviour has become an issue for adults: “Large cohort data suggest that high volumes of sitting are associated with increased all-cause mortality risk, even in individuals who meet standard exercise guidelines.
“In other words, a daily gym session does not completely offset prolonged sedentary time, which is why breaking it up across the day is especially important for office workers who typically sit for long periods day in, day out.”
Along with helping with blood sugar control and metabolic signalling, Lauren added that movement snacking also helps cognitively and can aid in reducing stress. Going for a short walk, climbing some stairs or doing some simple bodyweight movements can help reset both your cortisol and your breathing.
She finished up by saying: “For office workers it ultimately comes down to frequency. A few minutes every hour tends to do more metabolically than one gym session followed by ten hours at a desk.”
After giving movement snacking a go for a week, I truly believe it is something that I will continue to do while working or doing stuff around the house. While it may not give a transformation like regularly working out will, movement snacking helps keep both your body and mind active.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.dailyrecord.co.uk
