Nine floors every morning

I work on the ninth floor of an office building in District 1. For three years I took the lift every morning and every evening, like everyone else. Then, at a health check last year, the doctor told me that my blood pressure was slightly high and that I needed to be more active. 'You don't have to join a gym,' she said. 'Just move more during your normal day.'

The next Monday I decided to take the stairs. By the fourth floor I was out of breath, and by the seventh my legs were shaking. I arrived at my desk with a red face, and a colleague asked if I was ill. I nearly gave up that same afternoon. Climbing nine floors seemed like a small challenge, but my body clearly disagreed.

Instead of quitting, I made the goal smaller. For the first two weeks, I walked up to the fifth floor and took the lift from there. When that felt easy, I added another floor. I also used a free app on my phone to measure how many floors I climbed each week, which helped me see my progress. After about two months, I could reach the ninth floor without stopping.

The changes surprised me. The muscles in my legs became stronger, and the pain in my lower back almost disappeared. I also slept better, and the headaches I occasionally got in the afternoon became less frequent. Perhaps the biggest difference, though, was in my mental health. Those few minutes alone on the stairs became a quiet break before the busy day began, a time to think without a screen in front of me.

My blood pressure is now normal, although my doctor says I should keep going. A few colleagues have started joining me, and we sometimes race each other to the top. I am not an athlete, and I never will be. But I have learnt that exercise does not have to be a special activity. Sometimes it is just choosing the harder way up.