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Standing While Working Results in Better Work?
Bamafan77 asks: "I've recently become fascinated by the idea of standing while working. I've found that I'm much more productive for
longer periods of time while standing as opposed to sitting. The best way to describe it is that my brain feels more 'engaged.' Apparently, many famous people feel the same way including Thomas Wolfe, Vladimir Nabokov, and Winston Churchill. Other benefits include a better ability to control weight. (Guess what? Your slow metabolism ain't the cause for that belly). The Mayo Clinic has gone so far as to do research into a treadmill workstation. Does anyone here have experiences to share when it comes to standing while working, especially in the IT field?"
Standing sounds like a good idea, but walking? I keep getting this hamster image in my head. Plus, I'm sure if I put the computer on a treadmill it wouldn't be too long before I became distracted and forgot to walk. I often use my exercise ball instead of the regular chair at the computer at home. You're constantly using the leg and abdominal muscles to balance yourself. It also reduces back fatigue and improves your posture.
In a retail environment, standing all day just results in sore feet and irritability while working. Maybe the IT field is different, but in retail, standing all day sucks. Oh course, most things in retail suck, so why should standing be any different.
-William Brendel
Well i couldn't agree more. My brain works billion% more when i am not sitting on a chair. My most creative thinking comes usually when i walk. I am a programmer , so someone could ask when do i write code? Well shooting keys on the keyboard is the trivial task, and i could sit in front of a screen writting code for 3 days straight without sleeping. But i do not consider that creative work. I consider it the "dictation/translation to code/visualization" of ideas born after a long walk.
or in other words' You are going nowhere fast if you dont know where you are going
2+2 = 5 (for very large values of 2)
I've had two onsite roles where you could choose from different workstations within an open office layout. I actually started working from a regular desk, then moved to using one of those kneeling chairs for posture. Then upgraded to the partially tilted drafting tables with high stool and eventually found myself at the standing desks (which is fine as long as the screen is at eye level, using a laptop on these desks was difficult because you actually look down and makes your shoulders hurt after a while)
What happens is that you find that you focus a lot less on the screen all the time, you find yourself walking around a lot more, you make more cups of tea/coffee and it feels more productive. The only problem was that you can't really jump into the standing thing straight away, especially when you've been used to sitting at a desk for years. The other problem is if you get tired you tend to lean on your forearms like leaning on a bar.
The other thing I really liked about the standing desks is that they had bi-fold doors directly behind you which looked out onto an atrium with a large tree full of birds for most of the year. You could stop typing, phase out of the work at hand and listen to life for a bit. It was awesome during summer when you get the warm light rain, with the door open, coffee and maybe light music on in the background.
Task Mangler
I would think typing while walking on a treadmill would be really uncomfortable and difficult, as well as anything requiring semi-precision mouse work...
> I can't stand around typing all day without some serious pain
Perhaps you haven't had your workstation set up right. I suppose I am lucky: though I do development work in an ugly gray cube-land, my company pays an ergonomist to come in and measure people and adjust their workstations (keyboard tray and countertop height, chair position, etc.), the idea being that paying disability for folks with RSI and such is way more expensive than having the ergonomist in for a visit whenever we hire someone new.
Anyway, the point: I told the ergonomist six years ago that I wanted a stand-up cubicle, with a high chair I could pop up onto if I wanted to sit. My cube's counters got raised, its shelves went down near the floor, a new chair arrived (a pretty cheap one actually, but I don't spend much time on it)... and voila. I usually stand and type comfortably for the better part of an hour; then I'll hop up on the chair for ten or fifteen minutes max. (The chair is adjusted such that I don't have to raise/lower the keyboard tray when I move from standing to sitting.)
This works really well for me. My wrists don't hurt anymore, and neither does my lower back. (True, this may have a lot more to do with good ergonomics than it does with standing versus sitting.) I feel engaged with my work when I am standing. If I sit for too long, I either wanna slouch (which makes me wanna take a nap), or I get fidgety. No thanks, I'll stand.
I've tried this and have known several people who have tried this. In the short term, the novelty tends to lend itself to "higher productivity." It seems that freeing yourself from the trappings and surroundings where you've allowed yourself to develop bad habits (slouching, surrepticiously surfing /., playing solitaire, staring at that mark on the wall of your cubicle) that are not productive causes you to have a spurt of higher productivity. Nowadays, I find that a periodic change of venue helps me in the same way - I goto the library for a while, move to a table and spread my stuff out instead of on a desk, sit on the floor or on a couch. I think that the people that I work with innately understand what I'm doing, even if it looks funny.
The only thing I have against standing is that I have to find a counter or something of similar height that functions as a work surface - otherwise, i'm hunched over and a sore back is a real productivity killer....
Yes - standing while working was one of the two things (plus a daily hamstring/gluteal flexibility-training regimen) that fixed my back. Sitting all day is what put my ligiments in such bad shape that they stopped supporting my L4/L5 disk. I'm still very stiff and sore in the mornings, but the rest of the time I'm doing much better. I'd definately recommend it for anyone with lower back problems. But having a good workstation setup is KEY. I still sit part of the day, with my keyboard and monitor on special stands that move as I sit or stand. I had to make major modifications to the keyboard tray to make it go high enough - it's my impression that it's actually very difficult to find the right equipment. I had to scrounge. The stuff facilities bought for me just plain didn't work. Including a special chair that you basically lean against, isntead of sitting on it. That just didn't do me any good at all.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
from a medical point of view you also have dis-advantage in working in a standing position.
Mainly : the problem of venal blood return and venal stasis.
In short : your feet swell because the heart has a hard time pumping the blood back up all this height.
Just ask a surgeon (or any other job where one must stay standing up without moving a lot).
Walking may improve the blood flow (the muscle may act as supplementary pumps, because veins have valves).
But on the other hand it puts a lot of strains on the muscle of the lower extremities.
Most of the sportives (typical persons who work by moving in an upright position) have knee aging prematurely.
And I think most slashdotter know the problems associated with a sitting position.
Hence : there's no "perfect" position for working.
One should mainly change between them a lot, go for a walk once in a while, etc...
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