In the last article we revealed some research carried out by the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, Canada, which looked at how long it took doctors to make various trips around the hospital.

They found that the doctors took less time to climb the stairs of varying levels than it did waiting for the elevator to arrive and take them to these floors.

A prominent cardiologist at the University Hospital of Geneva in Switzerland, Dr. Philippe Meyer, agreed with these findings that climbing is good for office workers as long as they only have a reasonable flight of stairs to go up each day. He said:

“Taking stairs may save time if you are in a three- to four-story building, but certainly not if you work at the Empire State Building.”

As well as saving the office worker time. Meyer also saw a number of tangible benefits in terms of exercise. In his own study carried out last year, he found that workers did notice some improvements to their health through an increased usage of the stairs, but only when going up around 20 stories per day. This is more than the average person, so it is always advisable to consider other forms of exercise to supplement this.