[tl;dr - aim to take at least 250 steps every two hours to prevent buildup of blood clots] It's not just about getting exercise. It's also about moving your le

[tl;dr - aim to take at least 250 steps every two hours to prevent buildup of blood clots] It's not just about getting exercise. It's also about moving your legs sufficiently to ensure proper blood flow and prevent the formation of life threatening blood clots (disclaimer: that happened to me, I love to hyper focus and just sit in my chair and code for 8 hours straight, which turns out to be an incredibly high risk activity even for someone who is otherwise active, in good shape, not overweight, not a couch potato, etc). Your legs are far enough from your heart that your body has evolved a separate pumping mechanism for them: the actions of your leg muscles when you walk or run are responsible for booster pumping the blood through your legs. Standing desks may be great for other reasons but they don't help here because your leg muscles still aren't driving that pumping action the way they would if you were walking or running. My solution was to get a cheap fitness band (Fitbit Flex2 in my case) and set it to vibrate if I'm inactive for long periods. When it buzzes I get up, walk down the hall a couple times, and go back to concentrating.