My DIY standing desk set-up.
A few months ago I decided to try out a standing desk. Long hours sitting in front of my computer had made me feel like an old woman: creaky and cranky. I'd read about standing desks (and treadmill desks, and bicycle desks) but never seriously considered it to be an option for me. But then our CTO made the switch, I read this article in The New York Times, and I thought, well, why not? Here's how it went:
Our Marketplace editor, Mat, mugging it for the camera at his own (non-standing) desk.
First of all, what's so bad about sitting? Turns out a whole lot. Sitting increases your all-cause mortality rate, according to this study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology and this study from the Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise journal, as reported on by The New York Times. In fact, the amount of time spent sitting trumps physical activity, meaning no matter how physically active you are, the longer you sit the greater the chances you will die. (Gulp.) Prolonged sitting also shuts down the circulation of a fat-absorbing enzyme called lipase, according to this study. Brett and Kate McKay of the blog The Art of Manliness sum it up this way:
When you sit, the electrical activity in your muscles flat lines, and your body uses very little energy. Powering down your body like that for long periods of time leads to a cascade of negative effects. Your heart rate, calorie burn, insulin effectiveness, and levels of good cholesterol all drop. Your body also stops producing lipoprotein lipase and other molecules that are only released when you flex your muscles, such as when you are standing and walking. These molecules play an important role in processing fats and sugars; without them, your metabolism suffers. Add these factors up, and it's no wonder that those who sit for long periods of time each day have larger waistlines and worse blood sugar and blood pressure profiles and are at higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer than who sit less.
Is it any wonder I was looking for a change? It turns out standing desks are nothing new; there are repeated mentions of them throughout history and literature. Known standing desk users included Thomas Jefferson, Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck, and Winston Churchill, as well as Charles Dickens and Ernest Hemingway. ("In Ernest's room there was a large desk... He never worked at the desk. Instead, he used a stand up work place he had fashioned out of a bookcase near his bed. His portable typewriter was snugged in there and papers were spread along the top of the bookcase on either side of it..." - AE Hotchner, from Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir.)
You can buy adjustable standing desks, but I took the poor man's route and DIY'ed my own.
How I Made My Standing Desk
• 2 bankers boxes
• 2 shelves stripped from the wall in my office
• 2 stacks of magazines to adjust the height for my keyboard
• 2 small orange metal drawer units to prop up my monitor to the correct height
It ain't pretty, but it's functional.
As I told Gregory, the managing editor of our sister site Unplggd, in this post reviewing the GeekDesk (which our CTO now uses), standing was very fatiguing the first week or so. I had to sit down every couple of hours. But gradually my body adjusted to the habit, and now by day's end I get a I-feel-I've-worked-hard-all-day-and-really-deserve-to-just-chill-out-now feeling. I've also discovered that standing helps keep me focused, and I'm less likely to procrastinate than when I'm sitting. In order to stand for most of the day, though, I do the following things to make it easier:
- I may wear my beloved heeled clogs everywhere else, but when I'm in the office, I stand in Birkenstocks.
- I focus on my posture: lift my head, tilt my pelvis forward for improved spinal alignment, push my shoulders back, try to "lift myself" up tall and straight and look directly ahead into my computer screen.
- I fidget. I stretch. I play music and I let myself dance. I don't worry about keeping still. If I feel like moving in any way, I do.
- I sit down over lunch and during meetings to give my legs a rest. It should be noted that too much standing isn't a good thing either, which is why I make sure to take sitting breaks throughout the day.
The one area I haven't really experimented with yet is trying to do vigorous exercise after I've been standing all day. (I try to do my workout routines in the morning and on the weekend.) But one commenter in this post mentioned that once he started using a standing desk, his "energy levels and evening fitness routines dropped way off. It's not a workout but it's fatiguing enough during the day to really sap you." For evening exercisers, it could be a little more challenging.
Do you use a standing desk? Did you try it out and go back to sitting? Tell me your experiences and share your tips!
More Resources:
• Phys Ed: The Men Who Stare At Screens | The New York Times
• Is Sitting a Lethal Activity? | The New York Times
• Stand Up While You Read This! | The New York Times
• Are You Sitting Down? Why a Stand Up Desk Might Save Your Life | Mashable
• My Standing Desk Experiment | ZenHabits
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My roommates and I all have desk jobs, but when they told me they were trading in their two little old home workstations into a huge custom-built standing desk that one of their fathers would build... I was shocked. Knowing how much time my boy roommate spends on YouTube and Facebook when he gets home, and knowing that he went to Ju-Jitsu classes twice a week, I thought that there was no way it would work.
But lo and behold, it's a few months later, and the custom at-home standing desk is still there. The bar-height stools for it rarely get used. It takes up less space in the living room. And my roommates are healthier.
I currently work at a temp job, but I've been here for quite a while and I'm hoping I get hired. When I do, I'm going to talk to folks about getting an adjustable height workstation. Then I can stand for part of the day, and sit on my exercise ball for the other part.
Where is the photo of you standing and working?
@nanloggon, I was taking the pictures, so I couldn't get a picture of me at my desk as well! But check out this post of our Chief Technology Office at his Geek Desk in our NYC office.
As an architecture student, I always appreciated the flexibility of a drafting table, condusive to both sitting and standing. I guess this is just a more extreme, DIY version of that.
I just did the same thing this past July and I love it! I used two (unopened) boxes of printed brochures covered by a 3'x3' piece of leftover cabinetry board from a build out my company did a while back. I have two monitors and a pen tablet, plus keyboard, so the large flat surface was necessary.
I also bought a chef's mat from Amazon for around $30 and it's fantastic. As for workouts, I do CrossFit and rowing workouts three nights per week and I have no trouble doing so. Sometimes my feet are a little sore by the end of the night, but I wouldn't switch back to sitting for anything.
so have you noticed any health improvements?
http://www.ikeahackers.net/p/quick-start-guide-to-ikea-hackers.html
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THIS SITE!!! search for your standing desk. surprise, surprise.
I'm curious to know if you find it easier or harder to do certain kinds of work while standing? I'm a writer/blogger as well, so I log a ton of hours in my desk chair and this is super appealing -- but I'm worried I'd only be able to stand-and-work for certain kinds of tasks (email, phone interviews, etc) and still need to sit-and-work when it's time to buckle down and write on deadline. And my little home office doesn't really have room for TWO desk set-ups, though I suppose it could be finagled...
I'd definitely try this out. I prefer to stand rather then sit any ways.
I just push a button and my desk goes from sitting height to standing height. It's nice to be able to do both. It's made by Spectrum Furniture, Chippewa Falls, WI
Retired @65, in my last job I had an open door policy and people were in and out for brainstorming, conference calls to overseas customers, often with me still using computer to discuss/revise relevant documents. I think it was essential that we were seated, literally at the same level. Spending a lot of time in my office, the appearance of my desk,office, view from my office were so important...the flowers in the window box, mobile, art on wall and desk, a musical snowball w scene of Florida, everyone knew when they heard a few bars of "here comes the sun" that we were off to fresh start after project in Congo fell apart. Looking back, my office was a living and working space, not not a space - a room.
I had a standing desk all through college. I earned my degree in 3.5 years, (and no it was not an easy, online, or otherwise college). Maybe the desk had something to do with it, eh?
Also, after visiting Sweden this summer; it was made very apparent to me that standing desks are encouraged in the work place, especially in the government sector. My sister-in-law and her co-workers have adjustable height desks and most of them are all set to the standing height.
I work in a pharmacy where we are not allowed to sit. My shifts vary in length from 6- 11 hrs. I often spend ~30 minutes at a pop standing still at a computer, before running around doing other work for another 30. After a few years of this, my lower-back muscles constantly hurt, my legs are tight. I used to be more active, went to the gym, practiced yoga. This change is probably equal parts getting older- hating the low wage job the economy steered me into- and wishing that I could sit for a few minutes during the day (we don't get breaks either, except a 30 minute lunch).
When I stand in front of a computer (like at the library) I have the unfortunate habit of resting all my weight on one leg with my hip kicked out a bit. I shift legs when one goes numb, but this makes me want to sit down a lot. For a job where you need to move around a lot to get things, standing would be ideal. But for a job like data entry or being on the phone all the time? I don't know how well that would work.
I've seen people using those yoga balls when sitting - do they work any better or worse than standing?
I personally like jobs that combine sitting and moving around. I don't like standing in one place for long periods of time, even when I'm wearing task-appropriate shoes.
"the longer you sit the greater the chances you will die."
I'm pretty sure, although I can't link to a medical study to back my theory up, but even if I never sat at work, there is still a 100% inevitability that I will die.
I use a Twist Stepper (without the hand attachments) and I love it! Sometimes I "walk" and sometimes I just move up an down a bit.
http://www.amazon.com/Sunny-Health-Fitness-Twister-Stepper/dp/B0016BUR7I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317996215&sr=8-1
A few months ago, our entire office got the Adjustable Desks from Ergo Depot.
http://www.ergodepot.com/Adjustable_Desks_s/134.htm
There's 4 of us here and we all LOVE them. The desks are electric and move at the push of a button between height ranges. Very well made and we all have commented how much better we feel.
mellon, it sounds like you have a worker's comp situation on your hands. Have you been to see a doctor about your lower back pain? This is absolutely something that should be addressed by your employer. It's unacceptable that you spend up to 30 minutes at a computer and there is no capacity to sit while doing so. Some jobs do require employees to be on their feet nonstop (cooks, nurses), but there is no reason that a pharmacist shouldn't have opportunities to sit periodically during their shift. The fact that you say "we are not allowed to sit" is a big red flag that your employer is not appropriately concerned about their employees' health. They're putting themselves at risk of being sued by employees.
my dad was an attorney and had to have a custom standing desk made 20+ years ago because he couldn't find one. i gave it away last year. no one wanted it. ahead of the trend i guess.
Cool. But when I worked on an assembly line at Wavetek and sort of danced to the music I was listening to, that freaked out the ramrod management so much they banned music for everyone. They'd given us a new thing to assemble, with inadequate instructions so typically of moronic thinking, blamed my healthy habits. And people being what they are, everyone blamed me instead of management. Thank you for letting me vent. I've needed to for what... over 30 years now.
You might have just changed so many things for me. I'll try it at home in an effort to cut down on the mindless surfing hours (and cellulite).
Annie-O ... oh, what can I say!
Ditto. Ha