Since Covid, so many more of us—millions and millions!— are working from home. To all of you I have two words to say: Standing Desk. I ordered mine years ago—a Varidesk, no assembly required, nicely priced and designed—and it changed my life. It’s a standing desk that fits on top of my weathered wooden desk, and I wish everyone in the world would use some version of it. Here’s why: Chronic sitting makes you sick. Over time, it contributes to a list of diseases and ailments as long as your tibias and fibulas combined. Sitting too much shortens your life. I stand amazed, and so, I hope, will you.
Stand Up for Yourself.
Sit happens. Everyday, millions of Americans spend 8 to 14 hours on their behinds, sitting. I’m talking to you. Think about your day: You sit when you drive, watch TV, answer emails, eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, read a book, play a video game, admire your cat. The truth is, we modern Americans sit so much that it passes for totally normal behavior. We don’t even think about it, do we?
Well, start thinking! Pull up your life-shortening chair and listen to this: There are now over 10,000 studies showing that too much sitting is a terribly destructive thing to do to your health and well-being.
Rise to the truth. Your body thrives on movement, and when you make it sit for hours at a time, you create serious damage at a cellular level. Research shows prolonged sitting significantly raises your risk of developing heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer, insomnia, arthritis, osteoporosis. That’s for starters. It’s hard to believe chairs are still legal. If 70 is the new 50, sitting is the new smoking.
And don’t think your daily workouts will protect you. Nope. Chronic sitting is an independent risk factor, meaning all the risk correlations hold true no matter how much you exercise. It sounds too bad to be true, but it is.
And that’s why I want to focus not on the sitting-kills research, (astonishing as it is) but on what can you do to sit less, micro move more and educate yourself about the benefits of standing:
Use a standing desk. If sitting kills, standing saves. That’s why standup desks are quickly rising in popularity, in offices, in homes, and especially at my home, where I’m happily standing now, in front of my Varidesk, a clever, affordable design in the $350 range that I’ve been showing off to friends like a new puppy.
Some standups I researched looked too corporate and would have meant replacing my beloved old wooden desk. The Varidesk sits on top and has an easy, spring-assisted lift that takes me from sitting to standing in a couple of seconds. I love it…and I’m pretty sure it loves me.
It comes with an app for standup alerts, but I’m just using my own body awareness—gradually standing longer and longer until my legs tire, and then sitting for 30 minutes or so before I rise again.
I found a ton of anecdotal evidence online about standup desks curing back pain, insomnia, fatigue and more, and I’m not surprised. But too much standing can also create health problems (varicose veins, for instance) so stay tuned into your body and rest in your chair when you need to.
Move more. One sure cure for too much sitting is getting up every hour and moving for 10 minutes or so. Is that so hard? Apparently, yes. So do what you have to do—an app, a phone alert, a kitchen timer—to remind yourself to stand, to stretch, to do neck rolls, air squats, and other energizing movements. There’s also walking to the water cooler, jumping rope, practicing your tango moves.
Mercola.com is an excellent source for videos demonstrating the kind of intermittent exercises you should be doing, standing up and moving at least once every hour. “I was able to reduce my normal 12 to 14 hours of sitting to under one hour,” Dr. Joe Mercola reports. “And I noticed one amazing thing—the back pain I’ve struggled with for many years simply disappeared.”
Read this book. If you want to understand the solid science behind standing, read Dr. James Levine’s recent book, “Get Up! Why Your Chair Is Killing You and What You Can Do About It.” He’s the Mayo Clinic endocrinologist and pioneering researcher who documented the perils of too much sitting in 2000, way before it was accepted as true. And now he’s a leading voice for change in the work place, at home, and very importantly, in schools, where prolonged sitting hurts kids and stifles creativity.
I hope you’re convinced. Stand more; sit less! Now it’s time for me to lower my desk and rest my…case.
ENERGY EXPRESS-O! Rise Up to Change Course
“Sitting is more dangerous than smoking, kills more people than HIV and is more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death.”
—James Levine
GOING DEEPER
To get the feel of a standing desk, rig up something at home using books or a box. Ideally, you want the screen of your computer at eye level and your hands on the keyboard at a 90-degree angle. You might want to invest in a wireless keyboard to get the proportions right, but before you do, experiment with the best set-up you can.
Don’t be frozen in your standing position. Unlock your knees, bounce up and down on your toes a few times, let your hips sway from side to side, pump your pelvis gently, curling and uncurling your tail bone.
Small, nourishing movements energize your body.
Just use your common sense, and don’t overdo it.
And when you feel tired, dear reader, please be seated. Too much standing can leave you with sore legs and aching hips, neither of which is fun or necessary. As your body adjusts and gets stronger, you’ll find yourself standing longer and longer.
It’s great for the core!