Stand or sit all day – what do you think is best for your body? Through lots of reading, I’ve discovered that doing both regularly throughout the workday is the healthiest approach.
Over the last couple of years Dave and I have indulged our curiosity and attended events and conferences that had an interesting theme or appealed to us for some esoteric reason. We have learned interesting things and met interesting people. We like the human part of these face-to-face events. Occasionally, we find ourselves in the wrong place as we did this past summer at a conference in New York City. When the presenter said, in describing his PowerPoint slide, “As you will recall from your first year neurosurgery class…,” we sensed that we were beyond our depth in examining the latest perspectives on the brain. We stuck with the conference and learned a lot, although neurosurgery will never be in our future.
Reading and learning
Both Dave and I also like to read a lot. We like newspapers and magazines, but we also like reading online. Sometimes on weekends I just let my reading take me from article to article based on interesting titles. Weekdays I am more focused and choosy, limiting myself to business, education and health reading. Most of the time I appreciate the small tidbits that I glean from the material, often tucking away a factoid to marry it up later with something interesting in another article or conversation.
On both a personal and work level, I am very interested in health. It is, after all, the very essence of our being. While it sounds trite to say, without our health we have nothing. Researchers continue to examine different aspects of health and well-being and report what we should be thinking and doing as a consequence. One of the headlines that caught my attention this year was “Sitting is the new smoking.”
Sitting all day long
That title said a lot to me, as I am a knowledge worker who tends to work for protracted periods on my computer at my desk, in an airplane seat, in a chair balancing my computer on the arm or on my lap or, yes, even in bed.
I have chosen to not smoke because all of the data say that it is bad for me. Now, with the benefit of detailed study of sitting and health risks, had I unwittingly done something just as bad as smoking by just sitting? If I believe what I am reading, the answer is undeniably yes.
Health effects
The more I read the more I realize that indeed bad outcomes are reported from sitting. We know that a sedentary lifestyle in general is bad, and deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) is always a risk particularly in very long international flights. But I suspect that many people like me thought that some degree of exercise daily and weekly provided an effective antidote to the inactivity. Apparently this just isn’t so.
‘Sitting is the new smoking’ — 60% of Americans suffer from Silicon Valley Syndrome lists the bad effects as eye strain, back pain, headaches, wrist pain, carpal tunnel and insomnia. Nothing good in that list.
Other ill effects attributed to sitting too long include diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Compared to a little eye strain or back pain, these outcomes are far more serious and concerning. Standing is a more active position that is highly recommended even for just a short period of time because it can change a person’s metabolic rate. As Sitting is the New Smoking — Even for Runners suggests, “But experts say most people simply aren’t running or walking or even just standing enough to counteract all the harm that can result from sitting eight or nine or 10 hours a day.”
High work surfaces
It’s one thing to know something. It’s often quite another to do something about it. So here’s what we did in our office. We are in the midst of an experiment with higher work surfaces – the kind at which you can sit or stand. The tables are high enough to allow people to stand up to read their monitors or other materials or to type as they may need. We bought the high Aeron stools with all of the expected ergonomic adjustments to allow users to customize their setting to maximize their own comfort.
Personal testimonials abound about the value of standing and how the early trial stage progressed. Putting a load on the legs and on the core is good for a feeling of well-being. Standing probably means more small movements than simply sitting because a person has to balance.
Seating options
Not everyone comes to the same conclusions about their work areas and how they should be configured. We have some high and some low work areas as a consequence. And we offer multiple seating areas where people can take a break in a different type of chair from their normal one.
I think that the key is being aware that sitting can be a significant risk factor to overall good health and to do something about it throughout the day. It makes that old advice about standing up for yourself all the more meaningful.
