Exercise snacking - how small bursts of movement can boost your mindset

What is exercise snacking?

Exercise snacking means performing brief bursts of physical activity throughout the day instead of - or alongside - longer workouts. Think small, achievable actions that elevate your heart rate, strengthen muscles, and improve mobility.

To make them even more time-efficient, they can be done while you're carrying out other tasks. This could be doing 10 squats while waiting for the kettle to boil, taking the stairs instead of the lift, or walking on the spot while brushing your teeth.

Does exercise snacking work?

As well as gaining popularity as a life hack, exercise snacking is gaining support from health experts.

Mark Vahrmeyer is a UKCP-registered psychotherapist at Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy, UK. If you’re an ‘all‑or‑nothing’ person, he views exercise snacking as a gamechanger.

“Exercise often becomes caught up in all-or-nothing thinking,” he says. “We set a standard for what a proper workout should look like, and when we can’t meet it, conclude that there’s no point doing anything.

“The problem isn’t simply a lack of time, but the way perfectionism turns something good for us into another test we can fail. Exercise snacking offers a way around this by making movement ordinary, manageable, and easier to maintain.”

Mark Vahrmeyer

The physical benefits

When done consistently, short bursts of activity have been shown to improve your cardiovascular health, and boost your metabolism - making them a useful way to add more movement into your day.

Even one or two minutes of movement can help to:

• Increase blood flow.

• Improve insulin sensitivity.

• Activate major muscle groups.

• Break up long periods of sitting - a known risk factor for chronic disease.

This aligns with the UK Chief Medical Officers' physical activity guidelines, which highlight a 40% reduction in the chance of developing type 2 diabetes, a 35% reduction in cardiovascular disease, and a 20% reduction in colon and breast cancers - among others.¹

The mental health benefits

We all know that a good stretch or a quick walk can do wonders for our mindset, especially on challenging days, but it’s backed up by science too. A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM) shows that five‑minute movement breaks improve your state of mind and reduce low mood.²

Vahrmeyer highlights that when we’re anxious, overwhelmed, or mentally stuck, our attention tends to narrow, and we can become increasingly caught up in repetitive thought.

“Movement interrupts this process," he says. "A brief walk or stretch won’t remove the difficulty we’re facing. But it can create enough mental space for us to return to it feeling less trapped and more able to think.”

What if I struggle to exercise?

If you have difficulty finding the time, motivation, or energy for structured workouts, you’re not alone. According to Sport England, around a quarter of adults in England are inactive - doing less than 30 minutes of activity per week. This is highest among people in deprived areas, disabled people, older adults, and some ethnic minority groups.

“People often assume that they need to feel motivated before they begin," Vahrmeyer explains. "But motivation often follows action rather than coming before it.

"The more elaborate the activity, the more opportunities there are to postpone it. We need the right clothes, enough time and energy, and perhaps a journey to the gym. By reducing the size of the task, exercise snacking makes it harder for avoidance to take over.”

How to start

Just give it a go - the goal isn’t perfection, it’s enjoying the benefits of a simple, free approach to movement.

You could:

• Set a timer to stand and stretch every hour.

• Exercise while you clean - for example, lunges while vacuuming, or squats while you dust.

• Add a 3‑minute power walk to your lunch break.

• Use stairs whenever possible.

• Add a 'movement snack' between tasks to reset your brain.