14 easy ways to fit more movement into your day — and potentially live longer
Optimizing movement in your daily activities is a practice based on the concept of non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT, said Dana Santas, a certified strength and conditioning specialist known as the 'Mobility Maker.'
'It includes all the movement we do throughout the day that isn't part of a formal workout — things like walking to the kitchen, doing chores, standing instead of sitting, or even fidgeting,' Santas, a mind-body coach in professional sports, said via email. 'These small actions can really add up and play a meaningful role in our daily energy expenditure and metabolic health.'
'But NEAT isn't just about burning more calories — it's also about how our bodies are built to move and function. From a mind-body perspective, all movement is significant,' said Santas, author of 'Practical Solutions for Back Pain Relief.'
Americans spend around six to eight hours a day sitting, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Spending a lot of time sitting has been associated with a higher risk of premature death, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and obesity.
But you can counter being sedentary by becoming more aware of the ways you're moving throughout your day and considering how to get more active in a way that works for you. 'Frequent, varied movement through the day supports joint mobility, muscle health, bone density, circulation, mental focus, and even sleep,' she added.
That's why Santas often encourages people to incorporate 'movement snacks,' or short bouts of activity that break up long periods of sitting.
The more vigorously you do some of these activities, the better, said Nicholas Rolnick, a physical therapist based in New York City. You can track that with an accelerometer (a wrist-worn motion sensor) since it measures your heart rate, or by using the equipment-free 'talk test,' which helps you gauge intensity according to your breathing and capacity for conversation during exercise.
1. While your food is heating up, do some squats or wall sits or take a lap around the office floor instead of just waiting there or scrolling through your phone. 'Working on your lower extremity strength, getting your heart rate up — those are all things that will improve your physical fitness,' Rolnick said. 'And when you get your heart rate up, your cardiovascular capacity (improves).'
If you want to improve your strength and endurance over time, try doing one squat every eight seconds and then, in a couple weeks, a squat every four seconds, Rolnick said. You can also gradually increase your ability to do wall sits by starting out with a small knee bend then moving to a full 90-degree sit over time.
2. When you're running errands, park as far away from stores as possible. That can help add brief periods of activity to your schedule and increase your daily step count.
3. Better yet, walk or bike to nearby errands instead of driving. 'What also is a nice secret weapon in running errands and doing these is wearing a backpack and putting in a couple of books or things,' Rolnick said. 'That increases the workload that the legs and the heart have to do because the metabolic demands are going to be increasing.'
4. Skip the elevator and take the stairs. And if there is an escalator, walk up instead of letting it do all the work for you. Stair-climbing has been associated with improved body composition and lower levels of serum or blood lipids, including cholesterol and triglycerides, Rolnick said.
You can maximize the benefits by skipping a stair or two, increasing your range of motion and the demand on your legs. The challenge improves strength and blood sugar control, he added. Climbing more than five flights of stairs at home per day has been associated with a 7% to 9% lower risk of all-cause mortality compared with not climbing stairs.
5. When you're on the phone, walk around the block instead of sitting on the couch. Walking has been linked with a lower risk of diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and dementia.
6. While enjoying your favorite show, get active at the same time. You can lift weights, squat, do other resistance exercises, or walk or run on a treadmill.
7. Invest in a standing desk and use it. Even if standing while working isn't active movement, it still engages more muscles than sitting does. Desk-bound workers have been found to have a 16% higher risk of premature death from all causes and a 34% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, according to a 2024 study.
But you should still break up bouts of standing with movement breaks, a 2024 study based in Australia suggests. Standing for hours has been associated with greater odds of issues such as varicose veins or feeling lightheaded when standing.
8. Take your work meetings outside when possible. It's another way to counteract the health harms of sitting for too long.
9. Use a desk treadmill or walking pad during your workday.
10. While you're brushing your teeth, try some calf raises. If you have balance issues, practice the exercise on its own first and place your hand on the wall before attempting to multitask, Santas said. Alternatively, she likes doing squats or wall sits while brushing her teeth.
11. Carry your grocery purchases to your car instead of using a cart. 'When you accumulate volume at even low intensities, you're going to be able to improve your fitness,' Rolnick said.
12. If you already go on walks, increase your pace. A faster gait — defined in one study as more than 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) per hour — has been associated with a 40% lower risk of type 2 diabetes and improved cognitive health and mobility. You can also try adding a few walking lunges at various points during the walk, or step-ups on a curb or bench, Santas suggested.
13. Do your chores faster. By vacuuming more quickly, for example, you're increasing the demand on your arms and legs and upping your heart rate, Rolnick said.
14. Set a timer and walk for five to 10 minutes every hour. Over the course of an eight-hour day, those exercise snacks amount to 40 to 80 minutes of walking, 'even if it's just something as simple as walking fast around the office,' Rolnick said. Studies have shown that 60 to 75 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity daily can lower the risk of premature death associated with lots of time sitting, he added.
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Transcript: Dr. Mehmet Oz on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Aug. 3, 2025
The following is the transcript of an interview with Dr. Mehmet Oz, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Aug. 3, 2025. MARGARET BRENNAN: Change is coming for the country's Medicaid system as part of the enactment of the Big, Beautiful Bill. To help us understand what's ahead, we turn now to the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Mehmet Oz. Good morning. Welcome to Face The Nation. DR. MEHMET OZ: Thank you. MARGARET BRENNAN: You've got a lot of work ahead. I want to start on drug costs. The president put this 25% tariff on India, big drug producer. The President's trade deal with the EU puts a 15 percent tariff on imported medicines from Europe. How do you stop the drug makers from passing along those costs to people on Medicare and Medicaid? DR. MEHMET OZ: Well, the president's letter on Thursday for most favored nation pricing is a good example of that, and he's been working on this tirelessly since the first administration. And just to put this in context for many of the viewers, about two thirds of bankruptcies in America are caused by health care expenses. About a third of people when they go to the pharmacy, they leave empty handed. They can't afford the medication. So the President has said, Enough global freeloading. We've been covering much of the development costs for new drugs to cure cancer, deal with lots of other illnesses that are life threatening. It is in time for the American public to understand that we should not be paying three times more for the exact same medication in the same box, made in the same factories. The president's saying, equalize it out. Let's use a model that's worked, for example, for external threats, that's what NATO did. Everyone has to pay a little more. We'll pay extra too, but we won't pay a lot more than everybody else, so they actually have to raise their contributions, in this case, to an internal threat, which is illness. We'll pay a little less than America that way more Americans can afford these medications, and it's a fair system for the entire globe. MARGARET BRENNAN: So this was declared in these letters that were sent out to 17 pharmaceutical companies this past week, and it calls for extending that to Medicaid drug prices. Is that intended to offset what will be, you know, cuts to Medicaid? And do you know, you know, if the companies are actually going to follow through on this, like, how do you actually strong arm them into doing it? DR. OZ: Well just get the numbers correct. We're putting 200 billion more dollars into Medicaid. So we're actually investing— MARGARET BRENNAN: —by the time when costs are going up, so. DR. OZ: Costs are going up, but there's been a 50 percent increase in the cost of Medicaid over the last five years. So I'm trying to save this beautiful program, this noble effort, to help folks giving them a hand up. And as you probably gather, if Medicaid isn't able to take care of the people for whom it was designed, the young children, the dawn of their life, those are the twilight of their life, the seniors and those who are disabled living in the shadows, as Hubert Humphrey said, then we're not satisfying the fundamental obligation of a moral government. And this President has said over and over that he believes that it is the wise thing and the noble thing to help those who are vulnerable and every great society does that, we're going to as well. So we're going to invest in Medicaid as is required, but we want an appropriate return on that investment. One thing that Medicaid patients should not face are drug prices they can't afford. MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, how do you enforce this? Pharmaceutical companies— DR. OZ: Well, the pharmaceutical companies, if you sit them down quietly, Margaret, and we've done that, and say you went into this business at some point, because you cared about people. I know there's many out there shaking their heads, but that is actually the truth. People go into health care, whether they're pharmaceutical companies or insurance companies or the PBMs or anybody in the space. Even at the CMS, the most impressive thing to me in my new task, and the President has appointed me to, is the remarkable quality of people within the organization, just unbelievably talented. They went into this job because they care about health care and about people. Somewhere along the lines, people forget. They put numbers ahead of patients. And when that happens, then you start running into problems. We went to the pharmaceutical companies and we said, you appreciate this is not a fair system. We should not be paying more in America, three times more, for your products than you charge in Europe. They get the joke. They understand the reality of this problem. They are engaging with us. We're in the middle of those negotiations. The President has a unique power to convene. We've done it with dealing with prior authorization, this heinous process where patients feel like they're trying to get care from a doctor. Everything's being done except all of a sudden the arm of insurance comes in and stops the whole process for unknown reasons for weeks, sometimes months. The insurance companies, representing 80 percent of the American public, got together and they said, because we pushed them, we're going to deal with this. We can do the same, I believe, with the pharmaceutical industry, with most favored nation pricing. MARGARET BRENNAN: Let me ask you about the changes that are coming because of this new law to Medicaid, which is jointly administered between the feds and the states. There are major reduction- reductions to federal health care spending here, one of the changes are these work requirements. It's about 20 hours a week, volunteer or work to qualify for health care. What is the guidance you are giving to states on how to implement this? Because in this economy, things are more complicated. Uber driver, independent contractor, how do they show they work their 20 hours a week? DR. OZ: Last weekend, I was at the National Governors Association with Secretary Kennedy, who has been a big advocate of work as well. Every Democratic president and Republican president has said that the foundation of a healthy welfare system of a social system of support is work. MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, but I'm asking how you actually implement that and register it so that people who are working do qualify, and they don't get caught up in paperwork because they didn't file something on time. DR. OZ: As long as we're okay that people should work and would want to work, and it's not just work, it's community engagement. They can go get educated, right? They can take care of family members. They can contribute in other ways, but work is a great way of doing and get you out of poverty if you can find jobs and elevate yourself. There have been efforts to do this in the past, but they haven't been able to achieve what we can achieve, because we have technologies now. And we've invested already, as soon as the bill was signed, began pilots to try to demonstrate that we can actually do this correctly. We have pilots now in Louisiana and in Arizona, in both cases, within seven minutes, you can click on where you're working. You mentioned Uber, you're an Uber driver. You click that button on your phone. It just takes you to your payroll provider. Let's say it's ADP. We then ask your permission, can we connect with this payroll provider to demonstrate what you've actually been able to work and earn over the past month? This also, by the way, confirms your eligibility. But there's a bigger benefit here. Once you do that, you're in, you're done. However, what if we take one step further, Margaret? What if we go beyond just proving that you tried the work to actually say, You know what, you didn't work enough, but we can actually help you by connecting you through an employment office? MARGARET BRENNAN: So you're still figuring out the technology, but isn't there an end-of-December deadline for a lot of these things to be figured out? And how do you make sure that people don't get kicked off? Because in the state of Georgia, which already had work requirements, they have really struggled to make this work. DR. OZ: Well, a couple of things. It's not the end of December, it's end of December a year from now, and Georgia is apples and oranges. Georgia had a program only for people under the poverty level, and for those people, if they wanted, they could elect to come into a system to help them get jobs. There have been 50,000 reduction in head count of uninsured people in the overall program in the last five years. Overall, Georgia, 2 million less uninsured people. So Georgia is using a lot of tactics, and they're going in the right direction. I would argue that if you have confidence in the American people and their desire to take to offer to try to get a job, if we challenge you to that. And remember, if you're an able-bodied person on Medicaid, you're spending 6.1 hours watching television or leisure time, so you don't want that— MARGARET BRENNAN: —Well, KFF Health Policy found 92 percent of adult Medicaid recipients already are working. Or they have the carve out because they have to have caregivers, or they have to do other things. DR. OZ: They're fine. All they have to do is there'll be a simple app. If you've already carved out, that's super simple. If you're supposed to be if you're able-bodied and supposed to be working, we want to help connect you to the job market and get you into work. We have twice as many jobs available in America as people who seem to want them. The foundation of work is not just about fulfilling eligibility. The goal of health care insurance is to catalyze action in the right direction, to get you healthier, to give you agency over your future, so you recognize you matter, and you should have a job, therefore to go out and change the world. MARGARET BRENNAN: So there's a drug addiction problem in this country. How are those changes going to impact people who are on Medicaid in states like Kentucky, in states like West Virginia? DR. OZ: In many instances, there are carve outs for folks who have substance use disorder problems. There are programs-- MARGARET BRENNAN: —How do they prove that? ADMINISTRATOR OZ: Well, they can— MARGARET BRENNAN: Is this in the app? DR. OZ: Yes, it will be in the app. The app, again, this is being developed by the United States Digital Service, led by Amy Gleason, who is a wonderful technologist. She and I were with the President and Secretary Kennedy and the head of the czar for AI in this country on Wednesday, talking about overall how we're going to change the use of health technology in America. We've got to get into 2025 with health technology, as is true in every other sector. If you're watching the show right now, you could also be streaming media. You could take an Uber somewhere, the rideshare. You could do an Airbnb. Technology should make the system more efficient. We should have confidence that it will also allow us to do what we all agree is possible. If the whole challenge to a work requirement is that you don't have confidence in our ability to accomplish it, that's a separate question, because I do have confidence in the American people, and we have confidence we can pull this off. Look at the passport system, Margaret. Right now, you can go and get a passport in two weeks without having to go to the post office, send pictures, and all that's gone. It's fixable. Let's use technology. MARGARET BRENNAN: I'm still confused on how someone who is in the throes of substance abuse is going to use an app to say, I'm in the throes of substance abuse every week, to file on online— DR. OZ: —When they go in to get their help for their substance abuse treatment, assuming they're going for help on that, they can also get enrolled in, in those requirements, can be fulfilled. We want to talk to them in as many ways as possible. It's not going to happen just because we put an app out there, you, you have social workers and other folk elements who care a lot about this population, who are coming together, but they have to have some mechanism to report back. That just has not been done well. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, and this is incredibly detailed, and that's why we wanted to have you on. I have so many more questions for you on rural hospitals and some of the other criticisms. I have to leave it there for now. But thank you, Dr. Oz-- DR. OZ: Can I give you 30 seconds on rural hospitals, because this is important. You have 7 percent of Medicaid money going to rural hospitals. We're putting 50 billion dollars the president wants us to, Congress wants to— MARGARET BRENNAN: There are a lot questions on how you're going to duel that out, and whether you have already made promises. Do you have any specifics for us? DR. OZ: Yes. Wait, wait, it's going to be, they'll get the applications in early September. The money is designed to help you with workforce development, right sizing the system and using technology to provide things like telehealth that can change the world. Imagine if we can change the way we think about the delivery of health and make it more about getting people healthy so they can thrive and flourish and be fully present in their own lives and as Americans. MARGARET BRENNAN: Dr Oz, we'll leave it there. We'll be back in a moment.
CBS News
13 minutes ago
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Transcript: New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Aug. 3, 2025
The following is the transcript of an interview with Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Aug. 3, 2025. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to New Mexico's Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. She joins us from Santa Fe. Governor, two out of five New Mexicans are on Medicaid. You've got a lot of rural hospitals. Have you figured out how to implement everything Dr. Oz just laid out? GOV. LUJAN GRISHAM: Absolutely not. There is no real way to implement this. It's more paperwork for everyone. It's more paperwork for federal government, for state governments, for county governments, for local hospitals, for independent providers. And you know what Americans really hate, Margaret? When you go to your primary care physician and you spend 20 minutes sitting at a chair, not even on the exam table, while they are inputting data into a computer. So this doesn't make any sense. We should be a society and a country that is connecting people to healthcare providers. I think the one thing that Dr. Oz represents that's a fair representation, is we should be healthier as Americans. All right. We need to be moving out of poverty. We need drug prices- we should talk about that, to come down. So go after insurance companies. Do manufacturing here. Make sure we can negotiate fair prices. Let states do that, because I guarantee you, we'll do a better job than the federal government. And lastly, get people early, easy access today, more than half, or about half, our small businesses don't even offer health care coverage. So you can get a job. but now what? MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah, well, you said, though- in your state, because as a governor, you're going to have to figure this out. You have reserve cash from some oil and gas revenues, as I understand it, that have been put aside. Doesn't that show it is possible for the federal government to shift more responsibility back to the states? That's the argument conservatives are making. GOV. LUJAN GRISHAM: They are and it's temporary. There is no way any state, including this one—which, frankly, I am really proud of, we are in really good financial shape that takes planning and effort. You know, our job projections continue to be met and exceed, unlike the federal jobs report, which is going in the opposite direction. So I don't know where all these jobs are going to be in this anemic economy. I mean, it's so bad. The last time it was this bad, I was in college, and let me tell you, that was a very long time ago. And so yes, temporarily we can do that. But you can't do it over the long haul. The lost minimally to New Mexico over less than a decade is between 12 and $13 billion dollars and when, not if, rural hospitals and local providers close their doors. I can do this better than any other state. The last governor completely canceled behavioral health. Six years later, we are still reeling from trying to rebuild. We put a billion dollars into behavioral health just this last legislative session. It is not so easy to rebuild something out of nothing. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the $50 billion Rural Health Care Fund under this Republican law is supposed to give people the— your—states like yours, the ability to come and say, we need this extra cash. Are you going to have to ask for that? GOV. LUJAN GRISHAM: I'm going to ask for every dollar the federal government has put aside anywhere that benefits a New Mexican. So you got 50 billion. That's $1 billion for each state, if it was even. Do you know how much money it would take to shore up rural hospitals? More than a billion. And to put that in perspective—let me do this, it's a billion just for behavioral health, it's a billion plus just to keep people's coverage, it's another billion for prescription drugs, it's a billion dollars for rural provider delivery investments, and that's only 50 hospitals. You have hundreds of hospitals. Hundreds. 400 rural hospitals across America that will shutter. So that's the number at it is. We are- how do we pick these rural hospitals? And if you pick a Southeastern rural hospital in New Mexico, what about the rural hospital in western New Mexico. Economies fail. People have to move away. You don't have any OBGYN care. That whole area collapses, and they are reducing rural health care delivery by about 134 billion. So the 50 billion is just to make someone somewhere feel like they recognize that this is a disaster. $900 billion out of Medicaid is catastrophic, straight up. MARGARET BRENNAN: Governor, we ran through a lot of material here. I have more questions for you, but very quickly—can you tell me—you deployed the National Guard to counter unrest in New Mexico. How is that different from what the president did in California? GOV. LUJAN GRISHAM: Well, they're not policing. They're doing the back end work so that trained community policing, and members of that training, right—those local police officers, they're on the streets. What we have in this country is a shortage of police officers. What I have in New Mexico is a partnership. So they're doing all of the—they answer all of the emergency calls. They handle all the traffic clearance when we've got a crash. And it is working, we're beginning to see more productive fentanyl drug dealing high end arrests than we did without the guard. And I'm really proud of that work. This is about partnering and leveraging, not about indiscriminately going after individuals who have not committed serious crimes. MARGARET BRENNAN: Thank you for your time today. 'Face the Nation' will be right back.
CBS News
13 minutes ago
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University of Minnesota doctor-patient team hopes to help people suffering from chronic pain
It's a hard part of life for all of us, but for some, pain is constant. In the U.S., nearly 21% of people live with chronic pain, but a patient-doctor team from the University of Minnesota hopes to change that. Cemeteries aren't where everyone feels comfort, but it's the type of environment Olivia Hall of Stillwater, Minnesota, is drawn to. "You hear you wanna be a police officer, doctor, nurse, you don't always hear I want to be a funeral director," she said. It's a passion to serve passed down from her grandfather. She studied mortuary science at the University of Minnesota. She spends a lot of time on campus for another reason, too: her pain. "On a good day, I live at like a five, on a bad day, it's like a 9, and sometimes that can be treated at home, sometimes I end up back here, unfortunately," Hall said. She's a regular at the M Health Fairview University of Minnesota's emergency department. An emergency she had back when she was 15, a snowmobile accident, revealed a birth defect in her shoulder and the pain persisted. "Just a constant aching and burning, nothing could take it away," she said. "It wasn't like a broken bone. It was nerve pain, but we couldn't take it away." For years, Hall ended up in hospitals, needing painkillers. "When my chronic pain journey started, there were days you couldn't get me off my floor everything hurt so bad. Vomiting out of control, my arms would turn purple, my legs would turn purple. I literally had a doctor come and say, 'You are just mad because I am not giving you the drugs you want.'" she said. "We as women are just expected to handle things at a different level." Through her work, Hall realized the levity of the situation as she worked with and ached with a family who understood. "I can remember the first suicide I showed up to, and it was heartbreaking. it was actually a chronic pain person," Hall said. "And I remember, it was literally because she told her husband if she didn't find a doctor who would listen, that she would end her own life on this day." She wants to share her story for those who can't. It's a story about hope she found at the emergency department at M Health Fairview with Dr. Cody Tidwell and his partner. Johns Hopkins defines chronic pain as standing pain that persists beyond the usual recovery period. It can be complicated for patients and doctors, especially when the source of the pain is unclear. A South Dakota native, Tidwell embraced an area of medicine that can cause frustration. "I think it's misunderstood. Unless you have had chronic pain, you don't understand how much it affects your life," he said. Tidwell understood how affected Hall was. "He literally pulled up a chair and listened to me, and my friend was with me and said, 'That's the first doctor who hasn't questioned you.'" Hall said. Tidwell says it's hard not to be jaded for a physician who is not familiar with chronic pain. "You get burned once and, as a human, you kind of put up a defensive wall, and say, 'OK, that's probably a drug seeker patient.'" Tidwell said. "I try to really give people the benefit of the doubt, really it's innocent until proven guilty. I really believe in that in health care as well. Just because we can't see or get a lab or really justify it objectively, that doesn't mean it's not real. I always go into it looking at, 'OK, you're experiencing pain. Why and what can I do for that?'" With his partner and Hall, they established a care plan, identified a faulty nerve stimulator and weaned Hall off opiates. "I am out doing things and I can be a human because six months ago I wasn't," she said. "I think it's amazing. I want people to know it can be better, it really can." Hall has the energy to better serve others who are hurting. "I just want people to know you are not invisible, that the care teams are out there," she said.
