Making time for regular movement throughout the day helps us feel our best. This was especially clear in the preliminary results of the 2023 study conducted by Columbia University Medical Center in partnership with NPR. Participants were asked to take gentle movement breaks every half hour, every hour, or every two hours – and early findings indicate that the more participants moved, the more their mood increased and their fatigue levels decreased.

But the study also illuminated another important factor: consistently taking these movement breaks is challenging, especially on busy days. So what are some strategies to incorporate movement into your day while also juggling the demands of work, school, and life?

Here are the top five hacks from Body Electric listeners to help you get more movement into your daily life.

#5 - Double dip! Move... and get something else done.

Listener Sandy Sarber tries to find opportunities for movement while completing other household tasks. So when she's heating something up in the microwave, she uses that time to move throughout the house instead of waiting by the microwave. When she unloads her groceries from the car, she intentionally takes multiple trips back and forth in order to get in as much movement as possible.

"When I find myself thinking 'this is a waste of time,' I remind myself that actually I am gaining movement," she says. "And that is the new paradigm that I'm working with."

#4 - Let your body be your timer.

Listen to cues from your body that tell you it's time to move. Listener Mireille Mariansky says once she started paying attention to how her body was feeling throughout the day, she started taking more movement breaks intuitively – without needing to set a timer. She also turned her movement breaks into "dance celebration breaks" to celebrate completing a work task like sending an email, and that made the movement more enjoyable, too.

"I've noticed that I'm more aware of how long I sit and I'm consistently getting up for dance breaks, so it's becoming a habit," she says.

#3 - Get an accountability buddy.

Invite someone to join you on your movement breaks, or make it a friendly competition to see who can move the most each day.

Listener Jon Hirata suggests a strategy he calls "fit breaks" that he learned at his old workplace. Three times a day in the office, people would stand up and yell "fit break!" and encourage everyone to stand up and take a movement break – walking around the office, stretching, or doing some other form of exercise. These breaks were not required, but he says the power of doing it as a team usually got most people up and moving during the breaks.

#2 - Celebrate your accomplishments – however large or small.

Remember – some movement is better than none, so don't be too hard on yourself if you have to skip some movement breaks. Celebrate the breaks you do take!

Listeners found it helpful to keep a tally of the number of breaks they took, or put a star or check mark on a calendar for each day they took at least one movement break. Moving is not a punishment – it's a reward to yourself, and any amount of movement is worth celebrating.

#1 - Low tech is good tech.

Columbia University researcher Keith Diaz says manually setting a timer was the number one hack that helped study participants take the most movement breaks possible.

"When you use your phone and set the alarm yourself, you're telling it, 'I'm in the mood to be bugged right now, let's do it,'" Diaz explains.

Automated reminders from apps or smart watches are easy to ignore, but participants found it very effective to manually set the alarm themselves each time, so the movement breaks felt more intentional.

What are your favorite hacks for getting more movement into your life?

We'd love to hear from you. Email us at BodyElectric@npr.org. Plus, visit npr.org/bodyelectric to sign up for a quick guide on joining the Body Electric challenge to take regular movement breaks throughout your day.

This story was written by Katie Monteleone and edited by Amanda Orr and Rachel Faulkner White. It is part of Body Electric — NPR's podcast series exploring the relationship between technology and the human body.

Listen to the whole series here. Talk to us on Instagram @ManoushZ, or record a voice memo and email it to us at BodyElectric@npr.org.

The audio version of this story was produced by Fiona Geiran and Katie Monteleone, and edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour.

Original music by David Herman. Our audio engineer was Stuart Rushfield.

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