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Standing Desks May Not Be Healthier Than Sitting All Day, Say Scientists (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a Fortune article: Standing desks are the fashionable furniture of choice at the moment, but they may not really be the healthier alternative to, well, a chair. A review of studies into the benefits of "workplace interventions" to reduce sitting at work, such as sit-stand desks, are inconclusive, according to researchers from a Cochrane work group. That's because there's little evidence of the long-term effects of standing at your desk. "At present there is very low to low-quality evidence that sit-stand desks may decrease workplace sitting between thirty minutes to two hours per day without having adverse effects at the short or medium term," scientists wrote in an updated Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews study released this week.
Easy solution to the problem. Don't waste money on a desk that goes up or down. Get multiple displays, stack vertically. Either you sit or stand, and either way you've got a display at eye level.
Non-problem solved.
interactive hologram, or it didn't happen.
Has the "science" determined correlation between the health benefits of standing vs sitting and healthy vs unhealthy?
Okay, so the next piece of fashionable furniture will be the jogging desk.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
After switching to standing, my lower back pain disappeared. There's my conclusive anecdote to their inconclusive data!
Objectively, my standing desk has a cumulative and measurable effect on my blood glucose levels.
Subjectively, my increased blood flow and better BG levels make me feel more alert and more productive, and knowing that my employer is willing to invest in me as a real human being does wonders.
When I sit, my back and neck hurt because I slouch when I'm concentrating. When I stand, my back and legs hurt because I slouch when I'm concentrating.
On my treadmill desk, I never slouch, it's impossible to slouch while walking but it doesn't hurt concentration. So that's the ideal setting for me.
Instead of a sit-stand, I have an HDMI splitter and a wireless keyboard. Monitor at a sitting desk, monitor at the treadmill desk, they show the same thing, just move between them if I have to sit but I haven't used the sitting desk in months.
Health effects, whatever. I feel better when I can change positions every now and then. Sitting all day leaves me feeling tired and my back gets sore (yes, I've tried lots of different chairs). With a sit/stand desk I change positions every hour or two, switching between standing, sitting on a moderately-ergonomic desk chair and sitting on an exercise ball. The latter is actually fairly hard work to sustain for a long time, but I think my core has gotten stronger for doing it. Standing eventually makes my feet hurt. No one position is ideal, but changing it up seems to work great.
Anyone get the idea that this whole "health" idea of the standing desk was invented by IKEA, or other office furniture manufacturer?
I know that I have been sitting behind a computer screen for about 30 years of my life, and that now I suffer from chronic back pain. So, at home I switched to a standing desk, and at least on the weekends I have some relief.
I'll stop by in another 30 years and let you know how I've made out.
Big Chair, buying off scientists yet again.
I spent $600 on a good quality chair, and started taking 10 minute walks twice a day (morning and afternoon). Pain free for 5 years.
I simply lay back in my chair with my neck on the back and my legs straight out so everything is in a line like im standing, but i'm sitting!
I am really tired of all the conditional studies. Wake me when someone discovers something that can state, and not hedge they findings in conditionals.
The study was about whether standing desks decrease sitting time.
It does _not_ discuss whether decreased sitting time improves health, but it does say in the second sentence of the abstract:
"Physical inactivity at workplaces and particularly increased sitting has been linked to increase in cardiovascular disease, obesity and overall mortality."
Sigh.
The review article is not evaluating the health benefits of sit/stand. It's about whether an employee actually sits less if they have a sit/stand desk (or just uses it as an expensive sitting desk). The review says that it doesn't reduce sitting time by very much, which has nothing to do with health. In fact, the review article accepts the health benefits as a given: "Physical inactivity at workplaces and particularly increased sitting has been linked to increase in cardiovascular disease, obesity and overall mortality."
Don't draw any conclusions from the Fortune article. The Fortune author obviously has a bias, and is trying to support his point of view using an article that, in fact, contradicts him.
If you actually read it, the study is about whether standing desks reduce the amount of time you spend sitting.
It doesn't say anything about whether sitting is bad except in the "background" section, which says "Physical inactivity at workplaces and particularly increased sitting has been linked to increase in cardiovascular disease, obesity and overall mortality."
So, pretty much the opposite of what the article is implying.
Years ago, worked in a shop where folks stood beside a machine all day on concrete floor or rubber mats. After years of this, many suffered from foot, knee, leg and back issues.
Key is to get up, move around, walk up and down a set of stairs once in a while. Just don't stand or sit in one place all day.
Standing desks don't work if you don't stand while using them
A) Studies have shown that sitting is bad for you.
B) Studies have failed to show that standing is good for you.
Taken together this is pretty solid evidence that (A) is confounded in some way.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
I take 3 walks a day: once in the morning, once for lunch, and once in the afternoon. I get around 12k steps in total. I always come back refreshed and ready to tackle another 2-3 hours of office shit.
Then again, it could also be the 200-300mg of caffeine I ingest at the coffee shop I walk to.
I wanted a sit/stand desk at work because my knees hurt when I sit all day. My desk is too high (can't be lowered) so my chair has to be at highest and then my legs don't reach the ground. Yeah, I have one of those foot rest things, but unconsciously always move my feet onto the desk legsand this causes strain on my knees.
The company sent out an expert in ergonomics to do an assessment and I got a Varidesk that I can raise and lower as I need. The recommondation was to neither sit nor stand all day, but to switch it up back and forth every 20-30 minutes. I've been using it for over 6 months now and I really like it and have noticed a difference in reduction of aches/pains.
Agile! DevOps! Buzz! Words!
Psudeo Science debunked again.... Honestly all this crap is just a bunch of jocks trying to convince themselves that the desk is making them fat and not the fact that they are half-assing their workout.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Make America Fast Again! - Jeremy Clarkson for president
I'm certain that it isn't healthier than sitting because both my father and my uncle worked 40 hours per week standing through their life, and both needed knee double replacement after retirement. Moving around is the correct action. Not standing nor sitting all day.
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
Read Mark Rippletoe's "Starting Strength" book for a guide on proper form to do squats and other weight exercises. I have had back problems for a while now and simply exercising more, mixing running with weights has greatly improved the situation (and my overall health in general).
There is also a lot to stretching, I've also been taking a weekly pilates class for a few months now and that seems to help quite a bit as well. Programming for many, many hours in a char leads to all kinds of things being super tight that should not be.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
https://xkcd.com/1329/
They work. Not only prevent bad posture, people will listen to your rantings while bouncing rhythmically at the tempo of the mood.
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
Life itself is 100% fatal, ask any 150 year-olds you find. Lemme know what they say.
Until then I will SIT at my desk, enjoy a good meal, some sherry after dinner, the VERY occasional cigar, and live exactly as long as I live. DURING THAT TIME, I will waste none of it worrying about the latest bullshit to come from the gasbag farm. That... is for lesser mortals.
Did you know: every second that might be gained of life from all the adjustments you might make is not only insufficient to offset the time lost making the adjustments, paying for the standing desk, the ball chair, the upside-down hanging contraption, for most people?
Indeed, even if you are one of the outliers, and do live substantially longer because of one of these fads, or all of them, the years gained will be on the END of your life, when you will likely be too poor, to physically infirm, or too dead-from-a-mass-shooting-decades-earlier, to enjoy those years you bought. Or maybe you will survive and find your body useful, but the odds are also high you will be alone.
Enjoy!
Even if you're not, by the time you get there, the planet itself might likely be unable to go on supporting life as it has been, (in a climate-runaway-scenario,) or the institutions we have grown to depend upon might have shut down as society collapses.
Think I'll have another glass of wine and a cigar. You enjoy contorting yourself into a little pretzel in a vain and pointless effort to squeeze a few more hours on this increasingly inhospitable, miserable little nightmare of a world.
Just sitting or just standing is not the answer -- it's the moving your body every 20 minutes. The duration of the movement is not important, it's that you actually move your body. See here for more https://open.buffer.com/health...
github.com/chrispollitt
The article from Fortune is total click bait. "Standing could even be bad for you." Okay... then should there be a push to have people sit MORE at jobs where they're on their feet for 10-14 hours a day? Ultimately what they're seeing is either way the results are inconclusive because the studies aren't very controlled. People should try it themselves and see if it does good things for them.
I posted about this last year, here https://ask.slashdot.org/comme...
The summary version is this:
- Sitting too much is associated with certain health risks that take a long time to appear and are common with a sedentary lifestyle (so may not be caused only by sitting)
- Standing too much is associated with certain health risks that occur fairly rapidly (relative to sitting)
- We don't really know how much standing is enough to ward off the dangers of sitting,
- We don't know how much standing is too much and will result in health problems.
There's probably an optimal healthy point, but we don't have any studies that show where that optimal healthy point is on average, much less how it needs to be adjusted for an individual. The only real advice to come out of this is that you should take a break and walk around every once in a while and outside of work, maintain an active lifestyle with exercise and properly sized nutritious meals.
I'm lying down on the job. It's the only safe alternative. And now I have studies to back me up what the boss asks.
Have gnu, will travel.
Obviously everyone's work conditions are different but in my situation I have my desk that I sit at then my workbench where I stand and work. If I need to do detailed work at the bench I have a stool so I'm not slouched over for hours working on something difficult but moving about is the key to feeling good.
I realize some jobs you're stuck in front of that screen for the whole day so I don't know how to help that but placing your tasks in different locations so you move around is the key to not feeling achy and awful at the end of the week. ONLY standing or ONLY sitting seems to probably both be not all that great.
I work in a company where IT is "COST CENTER" my furniture was all rescued from the dumpster. I can forget about getting any type of new chair. I am happy I just scavenged one with all the wheels.
As for sitting at my desk, they like to plan projects without IT input then give us a week to "Just get it done". Right after this is the comments like, "All we see you do is sit and stare at a monitor"
Standing at a desk you look like a dork. Just don't do it. Anyway, standing 8 plus hours a day is torture. I did it for three years not through choice.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
How did the bread and water vending machines work out, or are they still being evaluated?
Standing desks. They're going to be pretty cheap in a few years; around the same time hipsters realise their stupid hairstyles are as dated and embarrassing as mullets.
The tilting arts and crafts desk I picked up at Goodwill for $15, can be raised enough to work as a standing desk. I'm not sure about the health benefits, the the change of locale to writing on my laptop is certainly an improvement.
The value of standing desks 'depends".
Mainly, people should just take a 5 minute hard break every hour. Standing is great as an alternative to sitting. And sitting is great as an alternative to standing. I wouldn't do more than a couple hours in either position unless one of those positions is painful.
The main issue I see with standing desks is frozen butt muscles (maximus mostly). This produces a sharp threatening pain. The quadratus lumborum causes more of a dull ache.
Standing or sitting- doesn't matter-- holding your arms out is a recipe for messed up infraspinatus muscles and messed up teres major/minor muscles.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I've worked on road construction and stood by the road among the dirt, sun and flies, counting cars. After a 10 hour shift, I am in a lot of pain and my colleagues who had to walk up and down the work-site are less exhausted than myself.
I cant sit, I cant stand, like in school, I need to walk from time to time. Else I get crazy. Anyway, my bosses always dislike me for this the same way my teacher did not like me skipping classes.
I don't understand how people can stand being like rats at their jobs. It is clear activity is needed. And my job is coding, therefore thinking, and I think better while breathing, watching, walking looking the sky and the birds.
People are reproducing the bad habits learned at school forgetting their own self interest, their health. I really don't get how people can shut this little voice singing : I want to be outside, I don't like to be closed in the noise.
I prefer to be fired than told to live most of my existence like a rat in a cage. I was not born to be trapped, I wish to help the others, it does not require me to be in a cage even with free soda.
... the problem is not standing or sitting, it's work ...
Totof
I tried a standing desk for 6 months. Got nerve compression issues in my feet, and had to go back to sitting. The reality is that the human body was not designed to be in one position (any position) all day long.
So your wallet is thinner now and that fixed your back pain?
Back in the day I used to be a cubical worker bee but I would never sit for hours on end. You have to get up and mill about every so often. You have to get up and make your way to the water cooler just because. One thing you can do is instead of pinging someone with Same Time or MS Lync you should walk over to their desk and if they are a couple floors above you use the stairs and get some exercise. I work remote now so I have to use the tools given me. I always like the face to face interactions with my co-workers and others in the company. It gave me exercise and I could get a better read on someone, body language, facial expressions and the like that you can't get any way else. My point is don't just sit there. Even working from home I get up and move about pet the dog look outside. Work standing up and sitting. They should not make a desk that makes you stand all day or one that makes you sit all day. Someone should come up with a desk that you can click a button and allows you to stand and then push the button and you can sit. That would be cool.
Paul E. Bahre