Do you sit in an office chair or on your couch for more than six hours a day?

Then here are some disturbing facts:

- Your risk of heart disease has increased by up to 64 percent.

- You're shaving off seven years of quality life.

- You're also more at risk for certain types of cancer. Simply put, sitting is killing you.

1.  Remember to stand once an hour.

2.  Get about 30 minutes of activity per day.

Whether you're a couch potato watching marathons of Firefly or an office worker sitting in front of a computer, an Australian study suggests short breaks from sitting once an hour can alleviate most of the problems described above. This isn't about working out (which is positive in its own right but doesn't counteract the effects of long periods of sitting). It's about creating pockets of moderate activity throughout the day and giving your body a respite from sitting.

What exactly is moderate activity?  Dr. Brian Parr, associate professor in the Department of Exercise and Health Sciences at the University of South Carolina Aiken points out the distinction between moderate activity and exercise:

- We usually tell people moderate activity is equivalent to a brisk walk. This would include yard work or cleaning your house - anything that gets you moving counts. You don't have to do what people think of as exercise.

- Of course, couch potatoes and office workers don't always have thirty minutes to spare.

- Here's the good news: you can break up that thirty minutes throughout the day. Dr. Parr continues:

This is the best part. We usually tell people to break it up into ten minute segments, but that's because it's the most practical. If I tell you that you can spread it out throughout the day, you're going to say, "Well, I stood up and walked across the room to my soda." What was that, about ten seconds?

You'll start to micromanage. I don't think that's how people should do it. But you could do it that way.

- The main reason you want to shoot for the ten minute chunks is because you're creating a mini-stress in your body that helps increase your endurance. In the real world, this means you won't get tired halfway up the stairs. Think of it this way: you don't train for a marathon by sprinting for ten minutes every day. Instead, you increase your endurance with longer jogs. The same goes for daily activity, you want to sustain activity for long enough to make it useful in your daily life.

- Let's look at how you can estimate your daily activity and make sure you get out of the office chair throughout the day. Photo by cell105.

The first thing to do is track how much activity you get in a regular day. For me, the easiest way to do this is a pedometer that tracks the number of footsteps I take. You can purchase a cheap $3 pedometer like this one from Amazon, or use an app on your iPhone or Android.

- The first step is to take a 30-minute walk and see how many steps you take. My total was a little short of 4,000. Yours will vary based on how quickly you walk and how large your steps are.

Next, you want to find a baseline of your daily activity. Start using the pedometer when you wake up in the morning and keep it in your pocket (or running on your phone) until you go to bed. This will give you an estimate of your regular daily activity.

For me, this was frighteningly low on the days I didn't purposely exercise. My total number of steps? Under 2,000. This is downright horrible and equates to less than a mile a day. Clearly, I need to get up and move around more often. Photo by Adam Engelhart.

If you're like me, you're well under your target exercise range. A few simple changes to your daily behavior will help you reach your goal. Here are a few ideas for how to do it without really trying:

• Park near the back of the parking lot.
• Stand up to visit the file cabinet instead of rolling your chair.
• Walk over and talk to a coworker instead of emailing them.
• Take the scenic route to the bathroom instead of the most direct.

If you work from home, you will have to make a more concentrated effort to meet these goals.  Start walking to a nearby coffee shop in the afternoon and or hop on an indoor bicycle for at least 10-20 minutes a day. If all else fails, do laundry because you will have to walk down stairs, carry clothes.

Meeting your target activity level is just the first step. The second part is much simpler and only requires you stand up now and again. Here's how I remind myself to do it.

If the alarm isn't enough, you can download dedicated software to remind you. Windows users can use free programs like, Workrave or Breaker to set up automated alerts. For Macs, Time Out seems the best free option. These programs will remind you to stand and dim the desktop to force you out of your chair.

It's up to you how you use these micro-breaks. You don't even have to move if you don't want to, but if you want to get a little activity in that minute, here's a quick way to do it without leaving your desk area:

• Stand up.
• March in place for twenty seconds.
• Reach down and try to touch your toes for twenty seconds.
• Wander around and pick up or reorganize for the last twenty seconds (eventually your desk area may even be clean).

The point is that most of the activities we sit down to enjoy have these types of natural breaks in them. If you're reading you can stand up after a chapter or two. If you're playing board games you can stand up after each match. Instead of sitting and turning your mind off, stand and do it. It's really that simple. Photo by annethelibrarian.

The moral here is two-fold: stand up once an hour and get at least 30 minutes of activity in a day. That's it. You just have to make sure you're moving throughout the day. You don't even have to give up your TV marathons-you just need to accent them with a little hourly effort.