Dr. Kelly Starrett

We're designed to be in motion throughout the rest of the day, for the whole day.

I think that's the way you should look at it.

And there are absolutely times where it's appropriate to simplify.

You have trained your body through high school and college and university and grad school to be able to sit and focus.

And that is not a problem.

What's the problem is these marathon bouts.

So Harvard defines sedentary lifestyle as sitting more than six hours a day in aggregate.

So that's TV, dinner, commuting, right?

We're having to sit like this is our organism.

And again, we should have a body that's tolerant enough to handle these sitting things without my back hurting, without my hips getting stiff.

But what we can start to ask is, okay, are there opportunities where we can break up that sitting into optional, non-optional sitting?

Because remember, the goal is just to move more, right?

So one of the things that's been useful for us is that data that says walking 8,000 steps a day reduces all-cause mortality by 51%.

That's a pretty good bargain.

8,000 steps turns out to be –

clinically relevant because a lot of people can get that without having to do a big crazy walk and organize your whole life around walking meetings.

You can kind of get that 8,000 steps.

So now we've got a benchmark in there where we're, instead of saying, don't do this, we're saying, Hey, let's do this positive behavior.

And that tends to change what's going on with all the sedentariness.

You're like, Oh, got to walk.