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Posture Affects Standing, and Not Just the Physical Kind (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: As somebody who sits in front of a computer most of the day, and has for a number of years, this article at the NY Times struck a bit close to home. It compiles a list of the negative consequences of poor posture. There are the obvious ones, like neck and muscle pain, joint problems, digestive issues, and so forth. But there are social problems, too. We're probably all aware that slouching can give a worse first impression than standing straight, but there's also evidence it can influence who a mugger picks to rob, and how you feel. "In a study of 110 students at San Francisco State University, half of whom were told to walk in a slumped position and the other half to skip down a hall, the skippers had a lot more energy throughout the day (abstract)." So take this as your yearly reminder, fellow keyboard-hunchers — sit up straight, move around every so often, and maybe invest in that standing desk.
It's not just you, but it is just a subset of the population.
At my computer I'm sitting, but I stand to go over documents with coworkers. Changing up seems to help.
They just recently had a rather large study over 16 years prove sitting has no impact.
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/...
Just getting tired of all the fearmongering. Medical science told everyone fat was evil, so everyone swapped to using sugar instead and started an obesity epidemic. Decades later, studies find that fat was fine and had no ill effects. Eggs, milk, gluten, all the same trends repeating themselves.
There comes a point when you can't trust any medical study on diets or broad behaviors impacting mortality.
The study doesn't compare slouching to standing straight - it compares slouching to skipping.
And I guarantee you a guy skipping down the street is going to draw more attention from muggers and other thugs.
#DeleteChrome
If you think standing helps when looking at documents with your co-workers, this study clearly shows that you will gain an additional advantage if you analyze your documents while skipping. You will have a clearer mind and feel much more refreshed after doing so. Additionally, if you do this while analyzing documents with your coworkers, your choice will benefit your coworkers as well. If they don't want to skip with you, they will be "left behind" in the workplace.
We focus so much on the negative consequences of sitting around all day because of the general nature of the audience on this site. But standing all day leads to a number of foot and vascular problems. Unlike the problems of sitting, which can be offset by a decent chair, paying attention to posture, and a few minutes of exercise after work some of those foot and vascular problems aren't really curable.
You pop a vain in your leg because you've been on your feet all day and the only thing they can really do about it is inject saline or something similar causing the vein to collapse and the blood to re-route.
And as someone who has worked full time on his feet in the past and developed pain in my feet. I assure you, a podiatrist will speak with confidence but the treatment effectiveness is so far from science that it is effectively voodoo. The foot, calf, all the tendons ligaments, and all those very very very many bones involved is extremely complicated. For 45% of people you can solve a lot of the foot problems by stepping on the machine at walmart and getting custom footpads, for maybe 5-10% the complicated extra braces or specialized shoes, etc from a podiatrist will take care of it when that fails (and cost a great deal of money), for the rest the only solution to sit down.
Trust me, if you haven't spent a few months on your feet for 6+hrs 4-5x a week and don't have arch problems you will after doing so for a few months.
Standing desks are no better than sitting desks. Maintaining any position for a long period of time is harmful. They key here is movement.
I agree that posture has significant effects on well being and how we are perceived, but the images I had as a kid of good posture were misguided. Military attention and finishing school book-balanced-on-your-head stiffness are not good example of ideal posture. They are too tense, stressing shoulders and lower back, among other things.
Good posture is balanced and flexible. Imaging partially hanging from a string attached to a point straight above the spine on the top of your head, with relaxed (not slouched) shoulders and back. Instead of rigidly holding a position and pivoting the body at one point, allow the hips and back, legs, shoulder, etc to adapt like an inverted pendulum to maintain balance -- not wiggly, just adaptable.
I hope this doesn't come off as too didactic, but it took me 50 years to begin to learn to move properly and it makes a big difference. At least for me.
We had to kill and butcher a temp in order to have lunch.
Hence, the origin of "Skip to the loo, my darlin'."
Have gnu, will travel.