When I program rest days I’ll often write in suggesting a 5km walk or 30+ minutes walk.
The idea is that if we simply sit a whole day, the tissues that make up our body: fascia, muscles, bones even, nerves and the nerves’ supporting tissues all tack up. There’s slime that form up and causes stiffness, that may in the long run cause inflammations or even help infections.
The way to prevent that - to feel great all the time - is increased bloodflow, which also mean increased lymph drainage: the tissues remain supple, silky smooth.
The goal is that we’d move every single day; and that’s meaning recovery movement (parasympathetic system), where training is dosed added stress (sympathetic system). In both states we thrive from movement: but there needs to be balance between high intensity stress (strength training or energy systems training) and recovery (blood flow and lymph drainage).
If we work out more than we are able to recover from, we get overtrained and that might cause problems both big and small. That is usually not the problem for us who train on a non-competitive level.
What we laymen usually miss out on is moving enough. Bloodflow and lymph drainage can be done:
Self-Myofascial Work - foam rolling, stretching, yoga
Cryogenic-Therapy = cold exposure stimulates blood vessels on the skin
Chiro work, or massage
Skin brushing - for example in the shower with a shower brush
Movement work - flows
Walking, 10.000 steps per day could be a good benchmark to try and reach, if you like data tracking
For example: are you able to walk to and from work? Even if the distance itself is too long, one could walk part of it by exiting bus or metro some stops before the closest one.
Example two: take a morning walk before starting work.
Example three: instead of watching tv in the evening/afternoon, take a walk with an audiobook or podcast in the ears (I love reading audiobooks, but cannot for my life just sit down and listen; so walking is the best way to do that). Might as well foam roll as walk if that floats your boat better.