Honestly, as a person who worked for years on standing jobs, fuck that. It wrecked my back and knees and I worked extremely hard to move to an office job. Now, decades later, my knees still creak and pop when I move, but I see people moving their desks to standing desks.
People, just go to a gym regularly and work out. There's no easy fix.
Article agrees with risks of standing and clearly says there is no winner here. Suggestion:
The best way for desk jockeys to avoid the sitting trap, research shows, is to not just stand but walk around — for a couple of minutes once an hour, or for five or 10 minutes a few times a day.
Everything is bad for you if you do it long enough, this has been known just about for ever. Sit, stand, take walks, run up and down the stairs, take a cup of coffee and chat with your coworkers/neighbours. Just make sure to not eat too much sugar and so on :-)
I alternate between standing and sitting. It seems only natural to me that the body needs variation. Stand, sit and (if possible) take a brief walk. Also, there's only one way to stand (correct me if I'm wrong), but there's a whole bunch of ways to sit. http://www.anvention.com/images/zazen_postures.jpg
I usually work following a 25 minutes of work followed by a short 3-5 minute break schedule, which usually consists in going up a floor, get some water, and back to the office (that's the closest water source we have). I cannot speak for any health benefits of my "technique", but I find it very refreshing.
Too much of any particular position will be bad. Sit on different chairs, move around regularly. Don't sit on the same chair in the same position all day for 40 years.
In India, we believe sitting with your leg hanging is not healthy. We usually sit on the floor which will restrict blood flow to the lower part of the body, resulting in more blood to the upper body where most of the vital organs are.
Yogis/Rishis sit for months in that cross legged posture without any issues.
Standing/Jogging/Walking is not the opposite of sitting. We need to learn how to sit properly
Are you referring to the Yogis who maintain specific positions for years, deforming their bodies into gnarled, unusable limbs? I wouldn't consider that healthy at all. I would consider them mentally ill.
I once joked that ever since I've heard about how bad it is to sit down during hours, I've decided to lay down instead.
But is that really so silly? I used to work in front of a computer. I was sited all day and I can tell it got very uncomfortable. I had back pain and stuff. Now I spend most of my time on the bed, and my back is absolutely fine. The main drawback is my neck, but it's not nearly as inconvenient.
What I mean is : isn't the posture what is wrong with sitting instead of just inactivity? If so, does that mean we need something like the Altwork Station[1]?
Serious question: do you have separate beds for sleeping/working? I've worked in bed during long periods of recovering from injury but I found it was very difficult to fall asleep at the end of the day because my body thought it was still 'in the office'. Now I work at a regular desk, and fall asleep within a couple of minutes of lying down at the end of the day.
Be careful, the neck position may catch up to you eventually! I spent about 75% of the workday in bed with my laptop over the past 5 years. Earlier this year, I experienced my first pinched nerve - chronic pain is horrible; the doctor, medication, and especially the physical therapy are no fun :)
I recently started using a
lap desk laptop stand with multiple adjustable angles and comfortable bolster cushion (in case you're curious, the brand I purchased is Halter - $19.99). I now sit on my couch with the laptop screen directly in line with my eyes, to prevent the typical downward neck tilt common with desk use.
This is why I like working at home. Throughout my workday I go from standing, to sitting, to laying on the couch. Even when sitting I'll move from my office desk to the kitchen table just to mix things up.
Is my posture perfect in any of these positions? Probably not, but I never stay in one position long enough to notice.
Another thing that I didn't really think about when I bought my Apple Watch, were the reminders to walk around every hour or so. It sounds simple, but without the reminders I would rarely get up on days when I go in the office.
Me too, I work mostly from the bed. I rarely sit more than 3-4 hours a day and it hurts. It started about 20 years ago and never went better. Besides that, I'm very active doing all type of sports without much issues, but sitting is painful.
I'm lucky that I can work from home most of the time, I don't know how I would do if I couldn't.
I remember a study from a few years ago, but I sadly can't find an authorative link. The result was basically that for your circulation, it doesn't matter if you sit or lay down (both are equally bad), but laying down is much better for your back and joints.
Ironically, when I worked at Bloomberg, I failed to get a stand up desk for myself. HR made people jump through so many hoops. A note from this doctor and an approval from that specialist, on and on. I tried for months. Then I brought in a swiss ball to sit on and it got taken away. And all of that was in 2014, not that long ago.
I have an adjustable desk. It's really nice to be able to move around throughout the day, but for any thoughtful task that requires some amount focus, I have to sit. I'd like to read further collectively inconclusive research about that.
I have the exact same issue. I recently moved to an adjustable desk, and writing emails is fine standing up. It's when I need to have a 2-3 hour coding session that I must sit down or I can't focus. I am wondering if this is learned behavior or if sitting down fosters creativity in some way. I'd love to see some science on it too.
Adjustable desk owner here as well - while it's great and I wouldn't want to miss it [1], I also have a bar stool with a backrest, so I can easily transition between standing and sitting in a second. I also often find sitting conducive to thinking, but then again sometimes I feel most focused when walking around the room.
It's hard to put my finger on what it depends on exactly, but it seems to me that often when I have no idea how to approach a problem, I like to sit or lie down, roll it around in my mind, maybe look at the code/the application and let possible solutions come to me. When I already have a basic idea of what direction to go in, I like to walk around in front of my desk while I work out the details (= talk them over with myself) and then type/write standing.
It almost seems as if the natural action for a physical destination (not standing around like an idiot until I know where I want to go, then starting to walk and finding my way there as soon as I do) helps with the corresponding thought processes involved in reaching a purely mental destination.
Regarding the physical aspect - over the last years of transitioning to and experimenting with a standing a desk I have had phases where I spent hours standing, phases where I went back to sitting most of the time and phases where I had a balance between the two. My personal experience seems to match the anecdotal evidence I've encountered as well as what seems to be the scientific consensus (oiling of joints and lymphatic circulation both rely on movement, among other things), which is that the human body simply isn't designed for spending long periods of time in a single static position.
Spending hours standing tends to hurt my feet and knees, spending hours sitting makes my back unhappy. Constantly switching between the two and walking around the room in between makes long sessions of working on a computer much less taxing on the body by far and it makes perfect sense to me that the accumulative effect of this over the course of years and decades will make a difference to my quality of life down the line (in addition to the immediate effects I'm experiencing often after only a single day of doing one or the other).
Another thing I've noticed - giving myself the option to easily switch positions, forcing myself to do it for a while with a timer and paying attention to how it feels, lead to me being aware of becoming restless in a single position after a while and noticing the beginning discomfort in parts of the body, which I only used to notice when they were already hurting after hours standing or sitting.
I don't use a timer anymore, by now I just listen to my body telling me when it's time to move my arse and it all syncs up nicely with the different mental states I move between during work.
On a side note/quick rant - how stuck are we in our heads and screens, how detached are we from our bodies and how ignorant of the fact that in evolutionary terms we were moving around all the time until like a second ago, that we need a study to figure out that hey, maybe sitting on our collective arses 90% of the time might not be great for us and are we really sure that's a problem, maybe we need more studies. End of rant.
TL;DR - get an adjustable desk and a comfortable bar stool, don't stand still, pay attention to how you're feeling - both your body and your mind will thank you.
[1] IKEA has this cheap manually adjustable option if one doesn't want to spend the money on an electrical desk, plus only having mechanical parts means it's less likely to break/easier to fix if it does:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S29084966/
Jog people. Seriously jog. To work, to the store... Smoothly, avoiding heel stomping (youll have calves in 3 days), to avoid joint pressure, especially at first. (my knees are still fucked up, but even then, I barely feel pain after 4 miles jog when I amort the landing properly).
2 miles per day will change your life. I now miss when I can't, I sleep better, I wake up better. It's a huge stress reliever, resets your mind, burns fat, opens your lungs, makes you hungry for healthier food (less pastry, more veggies and meat). bonus point: you get a tan
I couldn't "move" for three years and I notice the difference now that I can.
i agree with others that the standing desk industry doesn't hold much sway, but at the same time, if some experts say sitting is the most dangerous thing a person does in a day, then some experts are laughably stupid.
why is this sort of thing so common? these articles taking a common fact of life and using it to tell their readers they're doing it wrong and killing themselves and everyone they love? why is that such a common tactic for getting eyeballs? i guess because it works. but is it good for people to injest so much of this?
to be clear, i'm not saying that there aren't adverse health effects from sitting too much, and i'm sure there's good science to back that up, but there's a lot of good science, most of which never gets a writeup in bloomberg. so why do we get so much of "dangers of sitting", or "you're walking all wrong", and on and on?
You can make an adjustable desk for $0. I can take a recycle bin, trash can, cardboard box, another chair, books, another desk, --and place this item on top of any desk -- then just set my macbook on that. You don't need a $500 electrical moving standing desk - they are annoying. I currently have my macbook on top of a planter on top of a desk (the height is perfect). I worked for 6 months ontop of 3 large legos.
If you need to be hipster or require a mouse you can splurge on a nice one for $29.
I know this well, but standing for more than about an hour is torture on my back. (I suspect my flat feet and tight hips contribute here.) I have no idea how to fix this.
So I had all this: insulin problems, hypertension, anxiety and other problems.
I can say this is a real problem you should not underestimate.
But I can't agree with the title. I believe the underlying problem is lack of muscle movement. So standing all day will give you the same problems.
Muscles are a glucose buffer working tightly together with insulin. When this buffer doesn't work well your metabolism also doesn't work as expected and you will get all kinds of problems.
Take care of yourself and move as much as possible throughout the day.
I think it's important to keep in mind as with all things, correlation doesn't automatically mean causation - less healthy people are probably more likely to be drawn to less active jobs, for instance. Maybe there is a randomised intervention study that's been done?
Cut sitting time to less than three hours a day, one group of researchers found, and you could lengthen your life expectancy by two years
I care more about my quality of life than my life expectancy. Will I get 2 more years of quality life (decent mobility, self reliance, good mental health), or 2 more years of being confined to a bed in a nursing home as my mental faculties fade away?
I've found 1-2 walks around the parking lot per day to be a great boost to my well-being. I usually do it solo (escape from open office overload), though at my last job one of the more senior people would usually round up a core group for a good half hour walk.
If anything, taking active breaks has been good for my career. Often I go when I finish a task/segment and the quiet, outdoor time give my mind a chance to wander and put things in context so that I can choose my next tasks effectively.
It's anecdotal, but I suspect that the people who eat lunch at their desk and don't get up all day aren't actually creating more value than those who take some time. A quick search indicates there are at least some studies backing this up [1]. I'd be curious if there is evidence that points the other way though.
I was working in visual effects where we were doing 9 to 11 hours per day of work at a desk. Nearly everyone ending up buying their own varidesk (varidesk.com) I can't recommend them highly enough, especially if you work at an office where you are provided a regular desk. Varidesks just sit on top of your regular desk. I liked using a standing desk so much, I bought a Geek Desk for home use. geekdesk.com If you get one, be sure to get a standing desk floor mat as well.
I'd like to be able to sit much of the time but have frequent short periods of standing. But even adjustable standing desks don't really facilitate that well, and most of the adjustable standing desks I've seen are _worse_ sitting desks than a standard one.
My solution it to sit but every 45 minutes go for a 1 minute walk around the office. I'm not sure it's very effective but can't hurt too much
Like anything health related, it really depends on many factors (overall health, genetics, other risk factors) as to weather sitting will have a significant effect on your health. For some, it may never affect them much. But, it won't be a short term thing - you won't know until after many years of sitting. The negative effects of sitting aren't the kinds of things you can reverse.
[+] [-] Xoros|8 years ago|reply
Last week it was standing : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15050248
It's starting to be difficult to know how to work !
(And yes, I know it's a matter of the duration you stay in the same position, but I found it funny that both topics pop out in the same week)
[+] [-] silverbax88|8 years ago|reply
People, just go to a gym regularly and work out. There's no easy fix.
[+] [-] kaskavalci|8 years ago|reply
The best way for desk jockeys to avoid the sitting trap, research shows, is to not just stand but walk around — for a couple of minutes once an hour, or for five or 10 minutes a few times a day.
[+] [-] Moru|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unicornporn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enthukarthik|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bencoder|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] setzer22|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|8 years ago|reply
:)
[1] https://notsitting.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/LifeSpan-T...
[+] [-] fredley|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rafinha|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enthukarthik|8 years ago|reply
Yogis/Rishis sit for months in that cross legged posture without any issues.
Standing/Jogging/Walking is not the opposite of sitting. We need to learn how to sit properly
[+] [-] silverbax88|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grondilu|8 years ago|reply
But is that really so silly? I used to work in front of a computer. I was sited all day and I can tell it got very uncomfortable. I had back pain and stuff. Now I spend most of my time on the bed, and my back is absolutely fine. The main drawback is my neck, but it's not nearly as inconvenient.
What I mean is : isn't the posture what is wrong with sitting instead of just inactivity? If so, does that mean we need something like the Altwork Station[1]?
1. http://altwork.com/
[+] [-] henrik_w|8 years ago|reply
As they report "Fetal position desks help releive tension from unending horror of workday" :-)
http://www.theonion.com/video/more-office-workers-switching-...
[+] [-] kranner|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lscore720|8 years ago|reply
I recently started using a lap desk laptop stand with multiple adjustable angles and comfortable bolster cushion (in case you're curious, the brand I purchased is Halter - $19.99). I now sit on my couch with the laptop screen directly in line with my eyes, to prevent the typical downward neck tilt common with desk use.
[+] [-] matwood|8 years ago|reply
Is my posture perfect in any of these positions? Probably not, but I never stay in one position long enough to notice.
Another thing that I didn't really think about when I bought my Apple Watch, were the reminders to walk around every hour or so. It sounds simple, but without the reminders I would rarely get up on days when I go in the office.
[+] [-] yodsanklai|8 years ago|reply
I'm lucky that I can work from home most of the time, I don't know how I would do if I couldn't.
[+] [-] Lukas_Skywalker|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sashavingardt|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matwood|8 years ago|reply
Huh? Why?
Anecdotes like this make me hope I never have to work in a large company again.
[+] [-] poooogles|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] delias_|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] degenerate|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnl|8 years ago|reply
It's hard to put my finger on what it depends on exactly, but it seems to me that often when I have no idea how to approach a problem, I like to sit or lie down, roll it around in my mind, maybe look at the code/the application and let possible solutions come to me. When I already have a basic idea of what direction to go in, I like to walk around in front of my desk while I work out the details (= talk them over with myself) and then type/write standing.
It almost seems as if the natural action for a physical destination (not standing around like an idiot until I know where I want to go, then starting to walk and finding my way there as soon as I do) helps with the corresponding thought processes involved in reaching a purely mental destination.
Regarding the physical aspect - over the last years of transitioning to and experimenting with a standing a desk I have had phases where I spent hours standing, phases where I went back to sitting most of the time and phases where I had a balance between the two. My personal experience seems to match the anecdotal evidence I've encountered as well as what seems to be the scientific consensus (oiling of joints and lymphatic circulation both rely on movement, among other things), which is that the human body simply isn't designed for spending long periods of time in a single static position.
Spending hours standing tends to hurt my feet and knees, spending hours sitting makes my back unhappy. Constantly switching between the two and walking around the room in between makes long sessions of working on a computer much less taxing on the body by far and it makes perfect sense to me that the accumulative effect of this over the course of years and decades will make a difference to my quality of life down the line (in addition to the immediate effects I'm experiencing often after only a single day of doing one or the other).
Another thing I've noticed - giving myself the option to easily switch positions, forcing myself to do it for a while with a timer and paying attention to how it feels, lead to me being aware of becoming restless in a single position after a while and noticing the beginning discomfort in parts of the body, which I only used to notice when they were already hurting after hours standing or sitting.
I don't use a timer anymore, by now I just listen to my body telling me when it's time to move my arse and it all syncs up nicely with the different mental states I move between during work.
On a side note/quick rant - how stuck are we in our heads and screens, how detached are we from our bodies and how ignorant of the fact that in evolutionary terms we were moving around all the time until like a second ago, that we need a study to figure out that hey, maybe sitting on our collective arses 90% of the time might not be great for us and are we really sure that's a problem, maybe we need more studies. End of rant.
TL;DR - get an adjustable desk and a comfortable bar stool, don't stand still, pay attention to how you're feeling - both your body and your mind will thank you.
[1] IKEA has this cheap manually adjustable option if one doesn't want to spend the money on an electrical desk, plus only having mechanical parts means it's less likely to break/easier to fix if it does: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S29084966/
[+] [-] agumonkey|8 years ago|reply
2 miles per day will change your life. I now miss when I can't, I sleep better, I wake up better. It's a huge stress reliever, resets your mind, burns fat, opens your lungs, makes you hungry for healthier food (less pastry, more veggies and meat). bonus point: you get a tan
I couldn't "move" for three years and I notice the difference now that I can.
See you in 2 miles.
[+] [-] stephengillie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pasquinelli|8 years ago|reply
why is this sort of thing so common? these articles taking a common fact of life and using it to tell their readers they're doing it wrong and killing themselves and everyone they love? why is that such a common tactic for getting eyeballs? i guess because it works. but is it good for people to injest so much of this?
to be clear, i'm not saying that there aren't adverse health effects from sitting too much, and i'm sure there's good science to back that up, but there's a lot of good science, most of which never gets a writeup in bloomberg. so why do we get so much of "dangers of sitting", or "you're walking all wrong", and on and on?
[+] [-] hammock|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aklemm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ioquatix|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ransom1538|8 years ago|reply
You can make an adjustable desk for $0. I can take a recycle bin, trash can, cardboard box, another chair, books, another desk, --and place this item on top of any desk -- then just set my macbook on that. You don't need a $500 electrical moving standing desk - they are annoying. I currently have my macbook on top of a planter on top of a desk (the height is perfect). I worked for 6 months ontop of 3 large legos.
If you need to be hipster or require a mouse you can splurge on a nice one for $29.
https://oristand.co/
[+] [-] fredsted|8 years ago|reply
Also, I use 3 screens. I'd like to see "oristand" do that!
[+] [-] arvinsim|8 years ago|reply
Granted, I could use a standing setup when I am just using my computer/laptop for leisure.
[+] [-] SimeVidas|8 years ago|reply
1. My monitor sits on a cardboard box and an old inkjet printer.
2. My keyboard and mouse are on a nice, wooden plank on top of two stacks of cheap books.
[+] [-] white-flame|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ahh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pasta|8 years ago|reply
I can say this is a real problem you should not underestimate.
But I can't agree with the title. I believe the underlying problem is lack of muscle movement. So standing all day will give you the same problems.
Muscles are a glucose buffer working tightly together with insulin. When this buffer doesn't work well your metabolism also doesn't work as expected and you will get all kinds of problems.
Take care of yourself and move as much as possible throughout the day.
[+] [-] Lxr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FuckOffNeemo|8 years ago|reply
Buy everyone on your floor a Nerf gun.
[+] [-] GokhaleMethod|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Johnny555|8 years ago|reply
I care more about my quality of life than my life expectancy. Will I get 2 more years of quality life (decent mobility, self reliance, good mental health), or 2 more years of being confined to a bed in a nursing home as my mental faculties fade away?
[+] [-] rfeather|8 years ago|reply
If anything, taking active breaks has been good for my career. Often I go when I finish a task/segment and the quiet, outdoor time give my mind a chance to wander and put things in context so that I can choose my next tasks effectively.
It's anecdotal, but I suspect that the people who eat lunch at their desk and don't get up all day aren't actually creating more value than those who take some time. A quick search indicates there are at least some studies backing this up [1]. I'd be curious if there is evidence that points the other way though.
[1]http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/8548292
[+] [-] touchofevil|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbb67|8 years ago|reply
My solution it to sit but every 45 minutes go for a 1 minute walk around the office. I'm not sure it's very effective but can't hurt too much
[+] [-] blueatlas|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonbaer|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rpmcmurphy|8 years ago|reply
"Alex, I'll take circular saws for $500"
Perspective people, perspective.