Long drives, sore knees and other hard cases

If you drive for a living, or you have a long drive ahead. You can't stand up at the wheel. The Highway Code recommends a break of at least fifteen minutes after every two hours of driving, on grounds of tiredness. Use that break on your feet, walking round the services or the lay-by, and don't spend it sitting in a different seat with a coffee. If your working day is spent in a cab, the edges of the day carry the weight. Walk at the start and end of a shift, walk while you're waiting to load, and keep the evening rule in full.

If you work under a headset and a timer. Some jobs control when you can leave your seat. Stand for calls if the lead allows it, since standing still is better than sitting still. Use every scheduled break on your feet. It may be worth asking a manager or a union representative whether standing or sit-stand positions are available. Employers are more used to that request than they were.

Long meetings, trains, flights, the cinema and the theatre. Some long sits are part of life and worth having. Take them as they come and don't fret. Walk before and after, take an aisle seat when you can, get up when the seat-belt sign is off, and walk about in the interval. One unbroken three-hour sit in a week of good days doesn't matter much. The rule is aimed at the days when you hardly get up at all.

If you use a wheelchair or can't stand. The studies in this book measured sitting because for most people sitting means muscles at rest. What your body responds to is muscles working, and you can get that in a chair. The NHS publishes fitness advice for wheelchair users and a set of sitting exercises, and the adult guidelines say they're suitable for disabled adults. The principle of this book carries over in a changed form. Break up long periods of stillness with a couple of minutes of whatever movement is available to you. A physiotherapist can help you work out what that should be.

If you have arthritis or painful joints. Chapter 5 quoted the NHS view that exercise is one of the most important treatments for osteoarthritis and usually helps to improve symptoms. Short, frequent, gentle movement is about the easiest form of it there is. Your GP or a physiotherapist can advise on what suits your joints. In many areas you can refer yourself to NHS musculoskeletal services without seeing a GP first. If a particular movement causes sharp pain, don't push through it, and ask for advice.

If you have ME, chronic fatigue syndrome or long Covid. I said in the preface that this book isn't written for you, and I'll repeat it here because well-meaning people may press it on you. The NHS says that graded exercise therapy, which aims to increase activity step by step, is not recommended for people with ME. Its guidance is built around managing your energy with support from professionals who know the condition. Please follow that guidance and not mine.

If you have a heart condition, high blood pressure, diabetes or another long-term condition. Gentle movement is recommended for most long-term conditions, but the details matter, and they depend on your medicines as well as your diagnosis. Ask your GP or specialist nurse. If you have diabetes and take insulin or certain tablets, more activity can lower your blood sugar, so ask how to allow for that.

If you feel dizzy when you stand up. Stand slowly, and pause for a moment before walking. If it happens often, mention it to a GP or pharmacist, because it's sometimes an effect of medication.

If you're pregnant. The NHS says its adult activity guidelines are suitable during pregnancy. Your midwife can advise on anything particular to you.

If you're ill, or it's one of those weeks. When you've got flu, rest. When work is frantic and the rule falls apart for three days, notice that and start again at the next half hour. Nothing is lost that a week won't put back. People who have been much more active can find that a stretch of stillness feels worse than it used to. That's a good sign, because it means your body has raised its expectations.

If the people around you think it's odd. For about a week they might. After that it's just a thing you do, like the colleague who always has a window open. Denise has been walking round the estate at lunchtime for years, and nobody thinks about it any more.