Top Tip: Use the walking app on your phone or smartwatch to track your steps every day. Aim to be consistently in the top ten percent for walking in your age group (roughly 8-9K is average for ages 25-45).
1. Get off your train or bus a stop or two early; do the same on the way home. This can add an easy two or three thousand extra steps per day, without you even noticing. If you drive, park as far as you reasonably can from work, and walk from there.
2. Go to a café ten or fifteen minutes walk away to take the edge off your appetite, and give you an extra two or three thousand steps in the process. Keep a comfortable pair of walking shoes under your desk, so you don’t have any excuse!
3. During your work day, set an alarm to prompt you to stand and walk around the office every twenty-five or thirty minutes. You can also switch to taking standing and walking phone calls-walking for an hour-long call can add four or five thousand steps, that won’t feel like any extra effort.
4. Before you start into a difficult and creatively demanding piece of work, head off for a fifteen or twenty minute stroll, and bring a voice recorder or a notebook to prime yourself for what you have to do. You’ll find you generate perhaps twice as many ideas compared to sitting at your desk.
5. Try and find a partner-in-crime. We evolved as social walkers, making that long-ago journey out of Africa in small family and tribal groups. We are good at moving together, and we enjoy it, synchronising our breathing, walking pace and conversation easily and swiftly.
And over the days and weeks, you’ll notice how much better you feel, and how your productivity has improved.