I hear complaints of numbness and soreness from students forced into a sedentary lifestyle at school. I listen to constant whining about struggling to get to class on time, and about how crowded the elevators are. I have a simple solution for all of you. Take the stairs!

Do stairs have to stop on six different floors before they get to you? Of course not, that’s absurd. The glory of the stairs is that they wait for you instead of you waiting for them. The time it takes to climb the stairs to your destination floor is the same or less than that of waiting on the elevator to even get to you, not to mention take you where you need to go.

If you didn’t know this already, sitting in a hard plastic chair for six hours isn’t exactly what one would consider comfortable. Your blood pools, you get dizzy, and it hurts to move. Instead of standing still in an elevator and moving on to the next chair, the stairs give you a short reprieve. Regain some circulation, clear your head before your next class, just get moving for a few minutes, and you will feel better.

I take the stairs every day. I never take the elevator unless I have to, and I feel cramped and uncomfortable when I do. I climb around 12 flights of stairs a day, which is one of the shortest distances of any student, yet it still makes a difference. I use the stairs as a way to get moving for a minute and clear my thoughts before I get to the next little hard plastic chair and I advise you to do the same.