I hope this study don't revive the trend of standing desks again. Look I know being sedentary will rob me a few years of life, but going full opposite and being stand 9 to 5 it's Dante inferno at work.
Probably the best balance will be having a routine with exercise present, and small breaks to stand and walk a little bit at X minutes sitting.
It's almost as if it's lack of constant (even low-grade) activity that's the problem, rather than whether you're sitting or standing. Perhaps not moving all day is the cause.
I bought an Aeron chair a few years ago and although it's fantastically comfortable I feel a downside is sometimes I don't move for several hours if I get engrossed in work. Once they are set up right I've not sat in any work chair which comes close.
As I said, I'm not sure that's a good thing because of the length of time I can sit. I do wiggle a bit but often don't even stand up. I was toying with getting a sand timer or something similar to enforce getting up but not sure how those interruptions would affect my workflow.
>It's almost as if it's lack of constant (even low-grade) activity that's the problem, rather than whether you're sitting or standing.
Yes, IMO. And I would add to that: it is likely that the lack of a change is also part of the problem, as in lack of change (at not-too-long intervals) between action and non-action (such as walking or moving for the former, and standing, sitting or lying down for the latter). Noticed it in myself - if I walk or move for too long (many hours), or stand or sit or lie down for too long (ditto, except for sleep), I start feeling uneasy or affected in some way (obvious way is to get tired due to the former, but also uneasy due to the latter).
Edited for typo.
Also, adding to above my points in this comment: about lying down for too long, in particular, I've noticed that if I do that, whether intentionally (not often, maybe sometimes due to getting engrossed in reading something interesting), or accidentally / unintentionally (say due to a fever), the body feels uncomfortable after a while, which seems to reinforce my point above about some change being good.
Heh, nice try, but you don't even need a big interface to see how that pans out.
You realize how sedentary you are when you have to use a huge multitouch monitor for... half hour. Your arms will be heavy from just pointing and clicking at the screen in front of you.
This situation is very sad and I'm also looking for alternatives.
Right now what I'm doing is just taking a 5 min break every hour at work and walk to some random part of the complex pretending I'm delivering something or running some errand, just to get me a lil walk and stand time. While they allow me to do that just fine, I know I am also hurting my productivity quite badly because you're never in that kind of flow state where hours pass like minutes.
I want:
- Good productivity. Good time alloted to 'flow'
- Not fuck my health in the long term too badly.
I think it's fine to have an occasional binge of any kind. So you once every couple weeks spend a day or two just sitting intensley focussed on something. What matters is your habits for most of the time, not literally all of it (in other words as long as ~80%+ of your days you do take regular breaks it's fine).
revive the trend? its still in full force so far as I can tell.
One of our offices just moved to a new building and got (small) motorized standing desks for everyone. I thought I would hate it, but honestly having the option is nice. Plus, its a lot easier to look at something with a coworker standing for some reason. Sadly I'm almost never in that office, I kind of wish I had it all the time.
I like the option of just changing the chair height and/or the desk height every few hours and stay seated. That alone mixes up my posture quite a bit.
They're starting to phase in desks at my current job where you can save a few preset heights, and push a button to shift to one. It's pretty cool, though 90% of people with them only sit.
Standing desk plus an anti fatigue mat was mostly life changing for me. The amount of energy that I have at the end of the day is noticeably different but it does take some getting used to.
Different strokes for different folks though. I really miss it when I don’t have it.
I've had one of those and it was okay, but I much prefer my home setup - a standing-height desk and a draft-height chair. Nothing needs to move to switch, and so I switch regularly throughout the day.
What a good idea! I have a powered sit/stand desk but tend to only stand during meetings, which luckily (well, unlucky in this context) aren't very often. Going to give a drafting chair a try.
I think the real solution here is diversity. I don't know that 9-5 standing was ever seriously advocated as a preferable alternative to sitting; clearly there are issues with that too.
I mix things up at work personally; about a third of the day standing, a third sitting in a chair, a third sitting on a yoga ball. At this point it seems like you should just hedge and try to about doing any single thing without moving for too long.
Personally I love standing desks. I find myself naturally walk around more often, especially when I'm in deep thought. This rarely happens when I'm sitting, as it feels much harder to get up. But it's good to have a sitting option too so you don't have to stand all day.
If there are, do they supply high quality shoes? Standing for so long in bad shoes might result in pain, too. I'm a bit of a pessimist in that regard so I could see an employer doing this to save money. A good office chair ranges from $600 to $2000 but you can also can go as high as you want.
What do you mean by "Dante inferno"? Are you saying it's torture? I stand my entire work day and I'm not going back. But no one is forcing anyone to stand all the time.
Cardiovascular exercise is torture for me. But that has no bearing on the utility of it.
