How 15 Minutes of Movement Can Boost Your Mood

As stress levels rise, we all need time to escape. Whether it's from pressure at work, a growing to-do list, looming deadlines or nonstop notifications, sooner or later we start searching for a way to get away.

Today, more people are turning to wellness retreats to give their bodies and minds a much-needed break. And while travel can be relaxing, retreats often come with hefty costs and treatments that might not have a lasting impact on your mental wellbeing. The good news? We believe that you don’t need to go far to get away from it all. In fact, you might not even need to pack a bag.

The Everyday Escape

ASICS research shows that just fifteen minutes of movement can help boost your mood even more than a week at a wellness retreat. That’s right. No flights, no whale songs, no fancy face masks or sixty-dollar green sludge (what’s even in that, anyway?). This escape is just you, moving your body for fifteen minutes.

This World Mental Health Day, we’re inviting you to take an Everyday Escape of your own. You can do it from anywhere, and how you move is completely up to you. All it takes is fifteen minutes to take your body and mind to a happier place.

A quick glance at the data

To understand the limits of wellness retreats, ASICS spoke to 11,000 travelers across 16 countries. Overall, about two-thirds of participants said their retreat failed to meet all their expectations, and the same number said the feeling of calm they found on the trip faded once they got home.*

On the other hand, the ASICS Everyday Escape trial**—a study led by Dr. Brendon Stubbs of King’s College London—shows that people who simply took a 15-minute movement break each day felt a 21% bigger boost in their mood than they did after a wellness holiday. The short burst of movement also helped lower stress more effectively, offering longer-lasting benefits than a retreat (without the price tag).

Ways to get started

There’s no “right” way to take your Everyday Escape––all that matters is that you’re moving consistently. Here are a few ways to bake 15 minutes of movement into your day-to-day:

• Take a brisk walk or jog to your favorite café for a morning treat.
• Set a timer, turn on your favorite playlist, and dance like nobody’s watching.
• Turn a scheduled phone call into a walk-and-talk in the fresh air.
• Clear some space and “warm up” like you’re about to play your favorite sport. Lunge, jump, swing, and stretch to get your blood pumping.

No matter how you choose to move, we hope the Everyday Escape becomes part of your routine. Because when you move your body, you move your mind, and that’s a trip worth taking every single day.

Notes

*The Everyday Escape Research was conducted in August 2025 and explored the experiences and perceptions of those who had taken a wellness holiday/retreat in the past year. 11,000 people were surveyed across 16 markets including the UK, the US, Australia, South Africa, Singapore, France, Germany, UAE, Italy, Brazil, the Netherlands, China, Japan, Indonesia, Spain and Sweden. Each market was nationally representative by age and gender.

**The ASICS Everyday Escape Trial ran from the 4th to 18th August 2025, led by Dr. Brendon Stubbs of King’s College London & University of Vienna. The trial studied 17 people from the UK, US and Australia who had attended a wellness holiday/retreat in the last year. All completed consent forms before taking part. The Everyday Escape trial (n=17) should be seen as an early proof-of-concept study, reinforced by a global survey of 11,000 people and aligned with external scientific evidence.