Nearly half of Swedish employees spend more than seven hours of their working day in a chair, according to a new report from the health company Falck. The findings, reported by Bohusläningen, draw on roughly 26,000 health and work environment profiles collected at Swedish workplaces and are published under the title "Stillasittande i arbetslivet 2026."
The figure covers 49 percent of those surveyed. The same data also points to a gradual decline in recent years, with each year slightly worse than the one before.
"The trend is going in the wrong direction. We are becoming more and more sedentary," Åsa Miemois, a health developer at Falck, told TT, as cited by Bohusläningen.
Why it matters
Sitting is not a neutral habit in an office setting. The report links long stretches in a chair to rising stress levels among participants and to difficulty sleeping, both of which carry consequences that extend well past the end of the workday.
According to Bohusläningen, one third of those who sit between seven and nine hours a day report stress levels that may pose a health risk. That kind of strain, the report suggests, can lead to a mental fatigue that is hard to shake off.
Miemois described how recovery itself has become passive. People are so tired that they reach for their phones during a break, she told TT, because that feels like the only thing they have the energy for. But that only deepens the exhaustion, she said, since the brain simply takes in more information.
Sleep is the second consequence the report highlights. Three out of ten respondents who said they sit for more than seven hours also reported sleep difficulties.
Miemois pointed to the evening as a typical trouble spot. Instead of taking a walk after dinner, many people sit in front of the television with a phone in hand, she told TT. She noted that a large body of research shows movement helps the body relax and become tired, which in turn supports better sleep.
How the working day became more stationary
Miemois attributed the shift to a society shaped by digitalisation and technology, which she said has engineered natural movement out of daily life. A sedentary working life, she added, is now very easy to fall into.
The pandemic and the way it reshaped working routines have played a decisive role as well. Working from home brings clear advantages, according to the report, but it can also push people toward an even less active existence.
The report's numbers come from health and work environment profiles rather than a single survey, which gives the findings a broad base across Swedish workplaces. Bohusläningen reported the results on 11 October 2026, with the article credited to Tobias Österberg of TT.
Small breaks, shared responsibility
Miemois stressed that brief pauses can carry real weight. A short walk at lunchtime or a stretch between two meetings is enough to interrupt a long stretch of sitting, she told TT.
She also argued that the responsibility does not rest on the employee alone. Employers stand to gain from treating the issue as a work environment matter, she said, rather than offering a free gym pass for a week and considering the problem solved. Her question, as reported by Bohusläningen, is how movement can be built into the working environment itself.
The practical suggestions that follow from the report are modest. Block out time for lunch breaks and pauses, and aim to get outside during the lunch hour to break up the sitting. Movement outside working hours counts too: walking to the shop, carrying grocery bags, or working in a garden where that option exists.
None of this requires a training programme or special equipment. The report's emphasis falls on frequency and on weaving activity into a day that has been designed, in many workplaces, to require almost none.
What to watch
Falck's figures show a multi-year drift toward more sitting rather than a one-off spike, and the report places the fix partly with employers. Whether Swedish workplaces begin restructuring the day around movement, or continue treating it as an individual choice, is the question the next round of data will likely answer.
