Standing Up On The Job

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I read an article in the NY Times about standing up while working. [1] Despite how odd it might seem, the concept of standing or walking on treadmills while at the office is becoming more popular because of the potential health benefits that come with it.

The general idea is that people who are more sedentary during their day are more likely to to suffer from poor health or obesity. As a web developer, I can confirm this from experience since most of my co-workers are overweight or out of shape.

But, despite the fact that I am in pretty decent shape and eat a very healthy diet, the hours I spend sitting in front of a computer each day still negatively impacts my health.

In fact, there is some pretty compelling evidence that people who sit during the majority of their day just don’t live as long as people who are more active, and a short period of daily strenuous exercise does not necessarily alter that. [2] Apparently, the idea that you can make up for 12 hours of sitting down by working out for 1 hour just doesn’t cut it anymore.

So, I decided to try standing up while at work for a little bit, and see how it felt. You have the option of purchasing a purpose-made standing workstation desk, or you can try to set one up yourself. Before spending money on a new desk, I decided to see if I could put together something from furniture I already had available.

The tricky part to setting up a stand-up computer workstation is to find a table top that is high enough to allow comfortable use of your keyboard and mouse. Since the “furniture” in my cubicle is built into the walls, my options were limited. Luckily, I managed to find a small end table sitting off in the corner of the department.

When I put it up on top of my desk, the resulting platform was pretty close to the optimal height for my arms to rest next to my keyboard. My computer came with two flatscreen monitors, so I opted to place on at my standing eye level, and one under the table at sitting eye level. This gave me the option to either stand or sit, depending on what I was doing or if I was tired.

So, how did eight hours of standing feel?

To be honest, it didn’t feel very good at all. I was hoping that it would be a life-altering positive experience but in truth it made my knees ache really bad. I’ve had jobs when I was younger that required long periods of being on my feet, but this was the first time I tried standing up for so long with such little movement.

In a job like programming or web development, you are pretty well glued to a computer screen all day. Some times I am so absorbed with the code I’m trying to figure out, that I lose track of my surroundings or what is going on around me. It’s not the kind of job where I’m on the phone all day or going to meetings; activities which provide opportunities for random walking or movement.

I don’t think human legs and knees were meant to stand up in place for hours on end. Walking, on the other hand seems like a perfectly natural activity to be performed for long periods non-stop. I suppose if I could setup some kind of treadmill at my desk it might work better, and it seems to be a pretty popular concept as well. For my current job though, it’s just not feasible, and I think the noise would annoy all of my co-workers. Who knows, maybe one day I will be able to work from home and a treadmill desk might be something I could set up.

As an alternative solution to my problem of sitting too much at work, I’ve installed a software program called Workrave on my computer. It’s a simple application which allows you to set timers for different intervals, and it gives you alerts informing you that it’s time to take a break.

I’ve set it up on my computer to tell me to take a short 30 second break every 15 minutes (during which I stand up and stretch) and to also alert me every hour for a long 5 minute break (restroom or water cooler). It’s a great little program, and it’s helping me to avoid the previously easy situation of spending an entire hour without moving.