{"id":80195,"date":"2015-02-22T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2015-02-22T10:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=80195"},"modified":"2015-02-20T17:57:04","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T15:57:04","slug":"standing-desks-good-or-bad-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/80195\/standing-desks-good-or-bad-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Standing desks: good or bad idea?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Research has shown that sitting at your desk all day is bad for your health<\/a>, with some medical researchers comparing it to smoking<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A report published in 2014 even found that prolonged time spent in sedentary states (such as sitting at work or watching TV)\u00a0is associated with increased risks of certain types of cancer.<\/p>\n

The revelation that sitting is bad for you – which surfaced a few years ago – has\u00a0led to a big spike in sit-stand desks (SSDs) in the workplace.<\/p>\n

These work stations are simple enough in concept: you can sit at your desk, as normal, and then lift the entire desktop up so you can stand.<\/p>\n

Other designs disregard any seating features at all, and some are quirky and novel.<\/p>\n

Researchers say that some of these solutions can help counter-act many of the health problems associated with sitting for long periods of time, and could even reduce sedentary time (periods of no activity) by as much as 8 hours a week.<\/p>\n

One study<\/a>, which assessed 28 sedentary office workers using SSDs for 4 weeks, found that sedentary time was reduced by 5 minutes per working hour, while boosting overall activity levels.<\/p>\n

“The intervention also increased overall sense of well-being, energy, decreased fatigue, had no impact on productivity, and reduced appetite and dietary intake,” the researchers found.<\/p>\n

“The workstations were popular with the participants.”<\/p>\n

However, not everyone is\u00a0convinced.<\/p>\n

According to Alan Hedge\u200b, a professor in the Department of Design and Environment Analysis at Cornell University, sitting isn’t the problem – and offers the view that standing for long periods of time is just as bad as sitting all day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf what you\u2019re doing is replacing sitting with standing, you\u2019re not actually doing your body any favors – in fact, you\u2019re introducing a whole variety of new risk factors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Notably, standing for extended periods of time can lead to back problems and fatigue<\/a> or a lack of concentration for certain tasks, he said.<\/p>\n

The bigger problem, some experts note, is that it’s the “not moving” bit that’s doing us harm. In short: it doesn’t matter if you’re standing or sitting, if you’re not moving, the effect is the same.<\/p>\n

Google and Facebook are among some of the biggest businesses to embrace the standing-desk lifestyle, and the trend has led to some truly ingenious SSD design.<\/p>\n

Here are some standing desks that range from the practical to the ludicrous.<\/p>\n

\"Giant<\/a>

sawdust sold separately<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

The cardboard standing desk is perfect for the employee who likes their work space to be 100% recyclable.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"While<\/a>

While elegant in design, you will still swear at it when you inevitably stub your toe on the corners.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"When<\/a>

When employees can’t decide on whether to sit or stand, this design meets them half way.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"For<\/a>

For the standing-desk fan that’s always ready to go mountain biking on a whim.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"With<\/a>

With a few accessories, employees can work on their core while working on that report.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Captain<\/a>

Captain Morgan not included.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Take<\/a>

Take your calls with a very different kind of walkie-talkie.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"For<\/a>

For the active CEO<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Mixing<\/a>

Mixing work and gym in a more practical way<\/p><\/div>\n

\"This<\/a>

This standing desk can adjust height to fit any employee.<\/p><\/div>\n

You can see more standing-desk designs on Pinterest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More on the office<\/h3>\n

Is work stressing you out?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Workplace stress costs SA R3bn annually<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Fastest-growing industries for SA job seekers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research shows that sitting at a desk all day is bad for your health – will taking a stand help?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":80221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,9511],"class_list":["post-80195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline","tag-standing-desk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80195"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80329,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80195\/revisions\/80329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}