rewrite this title In a world built for sitting, here’s how to stay active — even when stuck inside

[This piece by Manoush Zomorodi also appeared in the Body Electric newsletter. Sign up here for a biweekly guide to move more and doomscroll less.]

It’s the season of “inside.” The kind of weather that turns your home into a little terrarium: warm light, hot drinks, a laptop — and a lot of sitting.

We don’t think of it as a modern invention, but all the time we spend seated is relatively new: For most of human history, chairs were relatively rare (usually a symbol of power), and everyday life involved a lot more shifting, squatting, perching, and getting up and down.

Why we sit so much

Then mass production made chairs cheap, plentiful and — crucially — everywhere. Offices. Schools. Living rooms. Once chairs became the norm, stillness started to look like “proper” behavior. By the late 1800s, seating was being designed to keep bodies in place for repetitive work. Later, school reinforced the lesson (“sit still to succeed”) and television reinforced it at home (“sit still to relax”). Today, phones and computers make it the default. We’ve built our world around sitting.

Where movement fits in

It can feel hard to integrate movement into your day, even when you want to. But movement breaks can help us feel more human, especially in winter.

So here’s your weather-proof challenge: pick two and do five minutes each today.

March in place (or do arm circles) during a call. You don’t need to be on camera.Do laps around your dining room table — bonus points if you put on one song and danceStair loop. Up and down for 2–3 minutes, then stretch, then repeatHallway commute. Walk the length of your home while you scroll (slow enough to be safe)

Forget working out — let’s just interrupt the spell that sitting and staring at a screen casts over us!

More about the history of chairs and, of course, how to integrate movement breaks into real life are in the Body Electric book, out in almost exactly four months.

We love to hear from you!

Send us a video of yourself or email us at BodyElectric@npr.org to share your thoughts on how to keep moving.

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This story was written by Manoush Zomorodi and edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour.