Standing at desks is not something peculiar, or something left to eccentrics like Dickens and Hemingway. There are sound reasons why standing rather than sitting at your desk will increase your health and even save your life.
The risks of long periods seated at your desk can lead to everything from obesity to diabetes and cancer, which is – to say the least – cause for concern. The issues arising have lead to the expression: “Sitting is the new smoking”.
The question is now to make your default position standing – not sitting.
Much of this research has been spurred by James Levine, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic. “The way we live now is to sit all day, occasionally punctuated by a walk from the parking lot to the office,” he recently said during a phone interview, speaking as he strolled around his living room. “The default has become to sit. We need the default to be standing.”
All this might sound suspiciously like the latest health fad, and nothing more. But a growing body of research conducted both by researchers and scientists indicates the major problems from long-term seating.
Will the Gym Help?
Smithsonian report that the negative effects of extended sitting can’t be countered by brief bouts of strenuous exercise. The answer is incorporating standing, pacing and other forms of activity into your normal day—and standing at your desk for part of it is the easiest way of doing so. Here’s a list of some of the benefits scientists have found so far.
1. Reduce the Risk of Obesity
Levine’s research began to find out more about why some people lose weight and others do not.. He and colleagues recruited a group of office workers who engaged in little routine exercise, put them all on an identical diet that contained about 1000 more calories than they’d been consuming previously and forbid them from changing their exercise habits. But despite the standardized diet and exercise regimens, some participants gained weight, while others stayed slim.
However the researchers discovered the secret: the participants who were not gaining weight were up and walking around, on average, 2.25 more hours per day, even though all of them worked at (sitting) desks, and no one was going to the gym. .
Research suggests that our conventional exercise strategy—sitting all day at work, then hitting the gym or going for a run is largely ineffective. The key to reducing the risk of obesity is consistent, moderate levels of movement throughout the day.
The reduced amount of calories burned while sitting (a 2013 study found that standers burn, on average, 50 more calories per hour) but there may also be metabolic changes also occurring with the body becoming less responsive to insulin, or sedentary muscles releasing lower levels of the enzyme lipoprotein lipase.
“Step one is get up. Step two is learn to get up more often. Step three is, once you’re up, move,” he says. “And what we’ve discovered is that once you’re up, you do tend to move.” Steps one and two, then, are the most important parts—and a desk that encourages you to stand at least some of the time is one of the most convenient means of doing so.
2. Reduced Risk of Type 2 Diabetes and Other Metabolic Problems
The detrimental health impacts of sitting—and the benefits of standing—appear to go beyond simple obesity. Sitting for extended periods of time is correlated with reduced effectiveness in regulating levels of glucose in the bloodstream, part of a condition known as metabolic syndrome that dramatically increases the chance of type 2 diabetes.
A 2008 study, for instance, found that people who sat for longer periods during their day had significantly higher levels of fasting blood glucose, indicating their their cells became less responsive to insulin, with the hormone failing to trigger the absorption of glucose from the blood.
A 2013 study concluded that for people already at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, the amount of time spent sitting could be a more important risk factor than the amount of time spent vigorously exercising.
3. Reduced Risk Heart Disease
There is long-standing Scientific evidence that sitting is bad for the cardiovascular system. The research goes back to studies in the 1950s of London bus drivers, finding that drivers (who sit) and bus conductors (who stand) and found that the former group experienced far more heart attacks and other problems than the latter.
Researchers have since found that adults who spend two more hours per day sitting have a 125 percent increased risk of health problems related to cardiovascular disease, including chest pain and heart attacks. Other work has found that men who spend more than five hours per day sitting outside of work and get limited exercise were at twice the risk of heart failure as those who exercise often and sit fewer than two hours daily outside of the office. Even when the researchers controlled for the amount of exercise, excessive sitters were still 34 percent more likely to develop heart failure than those who were standing or moving.
4. Reduced Risk of Cancer
There are also some studies showing that extending sitting can be linked with a higher risk of many forms of cancer. Breast and colon cancer appear to be most influenced by physical activity. A 2011 study found that prolonged sitting could be responsible for as much as 49,000 cases of breast cancer and 43,000 cases of colon cancer annually in the U.S. But the same research found that significant amounts of lung cancer (37,200 cases), prostate cancer (30,600 cases), endometrial cancer (12,000 cases) and ovarian cancer (1,800 cases) could also be related to excessive sitting.
The actual cause of such cancers in terms of standing or sitting remain unclear, but such ‘biomarkers’ as C-reactive protein, that are present in higher levels in people who sit for long periods of time are one factor that has been examined.
5. Lower Long-Term Mortality Risk
The reduced risk of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, a number of studies have found strong correlations between the amount of time a person spends sitting and his or her chance of dying within a given period of time.
A 2010 Australian study, for instance, found that for each extra hour participants spent sitting daily, their overall risk of dying during the study period (seven years) increased by 11 percent.
A 2012 study found that if the average American reduced his or her sitting time to three hours per day, life expectancy would climb by two years.
These projects control for other factors such as diet and exercise—indicating that sitting, in isolation, can lead to a variety of health problems and increase the overall risk of death, even if you try to get exercise while you’re not sitting and eat a healthy diet.
So standing desks appear to make great good sense for those who spend lengthy periods at their desk. The recommendation is to split your time between sitting and standing, as excessive standing can also lead to leg, back and knee or foot issues.
The easiest ways of accomplishing this are either using a desk that can be raised upward or a tall chair that you can pull up to your desk when you do need to sit.
It’s also important to ease into it, they say, by standing for just a few hours a day at first while your body becomes used to the strain, and move around a bit, by shifting your position, pacing, or even dancing as you work.
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