We live in a world where one of our biggest problems is having to sit down too much. Our communities are designed to function in a way where sitting down is a large part of whatever it is we do. So much sitting down isn’t exactly great for you and apart from just generally making you lazier, sitting down for long periods of time can lead to disastrous health consequences.
Let’s take a quick look at why we feel that your next investment in 2021 should be in home gym or in a standing desk. It just makes a lot of sense during the pandemic and here’s why.
Standing can Help you Avoid Weight Gain
The formula is pretty simple. The more calories you eat, the more you increase your chances of gaining weight. However, as long as you’re using up more calories than you’re ingesting, this won’t be a problem for you to worry about too much. One thing that can help you use up some of those extra calories so you can treat yourself to a donut in the evening is simply standing up. Studies have shown that on average, an individual can burn up to an additional 170 calories every workday if they work standing up for a few hours in the afternoon each day. That’s easily about a thousand calories lost without really doing a lot. If you’re someone that can’t hit the gym due to the Covid-19 restrictions or for any other reason, a standing desk can be really useful for you in avoiding weight gain.
Liven up your Mood & Rejuvenate your Energy Levels
Despite how critical you might initially be about standing up for long periods, once you get into the habit of getting your work done standing up, you’ll notice how you have effectively been able to kickstart your day much quicker. Standing up gives signals to your body that it’s time to fully wake up and get into work mode. If you’re sitting down as you start your day, you might find yourself still searching for the snooze button somewhere. This is why a 7-day study by PubMed Central suggests that participants that did their work standing up felt much less stressed and fatigued than those within the experiment that had to complete their workday sitting down. Furthermore, 87% of the participants that were standing up reported that they felt a lot more energetic throughout the day. One thing you can do to really make space on your own is to customise your desk to feel more energetic and get into your element. If you’ve outfitted your desk with your favorite artworks and pictures of your family, being in that familiar environment can help you be comfortable and lift your mood.
A Noticeable Boost in Productivity
When you’re initially transitioning from a sitting desk arrangement to a standing desk, you can definitely expect to feel some discomfort. This is simply because you’re breaking a habit and that, naturally, is something that isn’t exactly very easy to do. However, once you’ve established the habit of working while standing up, you will notice a huge boost in your overall productivity that will allow you to finish a lot more tasks on your to-do list much quicker. As standing dramatically improves your posture, it significantly reduces any joint, shoulder, and neck pains that you might be suffering from. This increases your longevity and enables you to complete tasks with much higher focus and mental clarity.
Reduced Back Pain
This one is so important we had to talk about it separately. It’s astounding that over 80% of all office-going adults will, at some point during their lifetimes, complain about having back pain issues. Most of these issues stem from the fact that people are working increasingly long hours and don’t do much else other than sitting down and working for at least 8 hours a day. The ‘Take-a-Stand’ project back in 2011 concluded that even if office workers stand for just over an hour during their day and continued their work, as usual, this would lead to a whopping 54% improvement in their upper back and neck pain.
The benefits of using a standing desk are certainly not limited to the ones mentioned above. Once you start adapting to this new lifestyle change, you may find yourself benefiting in ways that are unique to you. As humans, we’re all resistant to change on some level. However, the benefits that standing desks offer for just over an hour of standing might be too good of a deal not to take.
