Health benefits of standing desks: separating hype from reality

Too much of anything kills. The same is true of fried food, alcohol, and now – researchers are finding out – sitting. A study reveals that men who sit six hours or more a day have an overall death rate that’s 20 percent higher than men who sit for three hours or less. For women, it’s 40 percent.

And consider this: nothing you do can cancel out the effects of sitting for long hours in the office. Sitting harms you even if you benefit from a gym workout.

Here’s how sitting affects your health: when you slump in your chair, your calorie-burning slows to a third of the rate compared to walking. Metabolism drops. As a result, your risk of becoming obese and developing diabetes grows.

The link between sitting and obesity was established recently by the American Cancer Society. It found that people who stand for at least a quarter of the day reduce their chances of becoming obese. The benefits are more pronounced for women than men.

A suggested antidote, therefore, is to simply sit less – to the point that it stops being poisonous. You can see the appeal of standing desks. The theory goes that by standing instead of sitting at work, you burn more calories and counteract the effects of staying stationary for long periods of time. But while the solution sounds straightforward, it might be too simplistic.

Standing all day isn’t the cure

There’s a lack of research directly linking standing or treadmill desks to improved health, so any conclusions we make will have to rely on anecdotes and common sense based on existing research. Here lies the problem: while plenty of people vouch for the health benefits of standing desks, enough critics have also questioned the practice after trying it out.

Another study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, appears to contradict the claim that sitting too long causes higher death rates. Instead, it suggests that the simple lack of movement, be it sitting or standing, is unhealthy.

And it turns out, prolonged standing causes health problems too. Plenty of studies show that it increases the risk of carotid atherosclerosis (a disease of the arteries) ninefold due to the extra load on your circulatory system. You’re more likely to get varicose veins, which cause all sorts of complications.

For many folks, standing all day is unpleasant business, and it’s not just about getting used to it. Your knees hurt, you get more distracted at work as you’re constantly adjusting your posture, and your feet start to feel numb, as this poor woman found out.

Perhaps a person doesn’t need to stand all day. How about a happy middle, where you spend half your time at a standing desk and the other half sitting?

Not just about standing

That’s exactly what some health experts are suggesting. After reviewing existing evidence, researchers now say office workers should stand as well as walk for at least two hours a workday. They should then gradually work that up to four hours.

Some of the healthiest communities in the world validate this practice. Author and explorer Dan Buettner spent time with these communities, and he found that you don’t need to be a gym rat to live a long, healthy life.

Instead, these people do regular, low-intensity physical activity that’s a part of their life routines. For example, one community in Okinawa, Japan, tends to sit on the floor, causing them to get up and down over thirty times a day. In the communities Buettner studied, he finds that walking is key to long and healthy lives.