How we can exercise more without even trying

Incidental activity can reduce our risk of cardiovascular disease and even death. You can try some simple forms of it in a meeting, on a flight or while reading this article.

It can be easy to spend an entire day sitting. First at your desk at work, then perhaps in your car, followed by a couple of hours on the sofa. Before you know it, you're having dinner and realise you haven't exercised all day.

Many global studies have found that a sedentary lifestyle can increase the risk of serious health conditions. Everything we can do to decrease sedentary time therefore benefits our overall health. But it can be challenging to find the time.

That's where incidental exercise comes in. This is the moving around we do outside of deliberate exercise. It's also known as "non-exercise activity thermogenesis", or NEAT. This refers to any energy we use for movement that isn't sleeping, eating or deliberate exercise, says Anantha Narayanan, a research fellow at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand.

Incidental exercise can be as simple as tapping your leg when you are sitting down or doing the washing up. "Smaller movements like shifting posture, rolling the shoulders or flexing the feet count too," says Narayanan.

Incidental exercise is emerging as a surprisingly powerful tool for protecting our health, helping us to burn more calories, reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, and even lower our risk of death.  

Once we're aware of this "incidental activity", we can build more of it into our everyday routine with a few simple lifestyle tweaks. Here are some you might want to try.

Take, for instance, leg fidgeting.

Growing up, we're encouraged not to fidget, which is seen as a sign of boredom and not paying attention. There are many reasons to ignore this advice. 

During prolonged periods of sitting, muscles in our legs are relatively inactive. This reduces the regular muscle contractions that help to clear glucose from the bloodstream and support healthy blood circulation, says Narayanan.

But fidgeting increases muscle activity and therefore helps us to burn more calories compared with when we are sitting still, a recent study has found.

"Some earlier research suggests that leg fidgeting may help maintain blood vessel function and improve blood sugar control," says Narayanan. Standing as you do this may enhance these benefits. (Read more from the BBC about when you do and don't need to worry about blood sugar spikes.)

Similarly, a small study found that habitual leg shaking, a form of fidgeting, burns about 16% more energy........

© BBC