Office life, as we all know, is essentially a high-stakes game of who can remain seated the longest while pretending to be productive. But that habit, experts say, is about as good for us as a steady diet of stress and fluorescent lighting. Prolonged sitting increases the risk of being overweight, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes - because nothing says 'I'm thriving' like a ticking time bomb in your chair.

Enter the British Journal of Sports Medicine, which has published a study suggesting that taking five-minute breaks - or, as they've charmingly dubbed them, 'movement snacks' - every hour is the sweet spot for boosting wellbeing without torpedoing efficiency. Lead researcher Keith Diaz from Columbia University notes that most adults now spend three-quarters of their waking day sedentary. The general advice to 'sit less and move more' is fine, but apparently people need to know the dosage, like they're being prescribed a medication for the disease of sitting.

The study surveyed over 11,000 US employees, mostly in office jobs working eight- to nine-hour shifts. For the first week, they went about their usual routine and completed daily surveys about tiredness, mood, and work performance. Then, for two weeks, they were asked to take walking breaks of five minutes at intervals of every half hour, every hour, or every two hours. A walk every half hour was great for mood and reducing tiredness but, surprise, disruptive to the day job. Every two hours was better than nothing, but the five-minute hourly stroll emerged as the Goldilocks of productivity, mood, and alertness.

Diaz acknowledges that sitting for hours is a hard habit to kick, with many employees worrying about what their boss or co-workers would think. But he insists that 'movement breaks actually can boost work performance,' improving executive function, attention, and memory. And walking is low-cost - it doesn't even mean stopping work if you take walking meetings or pace during phone calls.

Emily McGrath, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, welcomed the findings but cautioned that the study relied on self-reported data and was short-term. So, while we can now justify a five-minute hourly stroll to our bosses, we'll need to wait for longer research to confirm whether it actually makes our hearts sing or just our survey responses.