I know that some of you on WSO (from reading posts) spend a few hours a week at the gym, but apparently fitting in exercise into your busy professional lifestyle does not negate 80+ hours of sitting while your "arteries cram", according to Bloomberg Businessweek.
A raft of recent medical research has shown that the more time a person spends sitting every day, the more likely he or she is to suffer from heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, and, worst of all, an early death. One recent study, from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., followed 17,000 Canadians over 12 years and found that those who sat for most of the day were 54 percent more likely to die of heart attacks than those who didn’t.
Standing desks have been used at Google, Facebook and other tech companies. This article also suggests getting up every hour or so can have much more health benefits than hitting the gym (not that the gym is a bad thing). Companies who make standing desks are booming and even insurance companies are taking "sitting disease" seriously.
I've never really given this much thought, even though it's obvious that sitting all day glued to the computer can't be good for you. I also usually don't obsess over my health, but I would even go as far as comparing long periods of sitting to smoking (now that I've read this article), where you don't see the effects until later when it's too late. Heck, I might even consider buying a standing or treadmill desk.
Any thoughts? Do you take these warnings seriously? Do you get up and walk often? If so, how many times?
My desk can be elevated so I can stand at it. The only reason I do it though is to stay awake because it's hard to fall asleep standing up.
Standing desks are great, I'm trying to get one in here. I tried it for a day and felt like I was back bartending. I'm sure there are health benefits as well: the human body did not evolve to sit around for long periods of time and you see a clear difference between the health of office drones and those who take physically active jobs within only a few years after school ends.
PS – Does this guy walk all day in slacks and a pair of Bostonians? Like full suit or business casual just trekking throughout his life of Excel 1 mile at a time? Unbelievable."
I don't think that's the right attitude to have.
^clearly not. But at the same time, a cubicle monkey bitching about sitting on his ass is like a fisherman bitching about how much he hates water... so I see where he's coming from
I want a desk with a treadmill! I think that's a pretty decent idea. Not too office friendly though in terms of space/noise.
Imagine trying to work while everyones sweating, bashing their keyboards and falling apart. Oh wait isn't that a trading floor? Joke
I get up and walk around a little about every 45mins, especially if things are slow. Can't sit still much longer unless I'm very, very busy.
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