Many people have been taking their active living and exercise to the next level by replacing their traditional office chair with an electric standing desk. What you may not know, though, is that there are all kinds of great reasons to get one. Here are 20 things you didn’t know about the electric standing desk!
1- A standing desk can reduce your risk of a chronic back pain flare-up by 50% (according to the Mayo Clinic).
2- The average worker spends 15 hours per week sitting; that same person could spend just 2 hours sitting at a conventional desk without interfering with his or her work.
3- Sitting in a chair for 8 hours per day is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes per day.
4- Workers who stand while they work have twice as much energy at the end of their workday, according to researchers at Scotland’s University of Dundee.
5- An American standing desk user has a 30% lower chance of developing chronic back pain during his or her lifetime, according to a study from the University of Arizona.
6- Standing desks burn more calories than conventional desks because you are taking your muscles through their full range of motion. You can burn up to 15 calories per hour with an electric standing desk.
7- Many people who have standing desks and sit at home, too, find that they don’t get as tired when they are sitting and recovering from a long day of standing.
8- Just 20 minutes of standing, once or twice a day, could cut your odds of heart disease in half. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition looked at nearly 70 studies to come up with this statistic.
9- Your legs store energy as blood sugar and fat cells. When you’re on your feet all day, you keep burning these calories and not storing them in your legs. According to Dr. William Evans, chief science officer of the Mayo Clinic and author of Exercise Your Legs: Eat Your Way to Thinner and Stronger Legs, this can lead to poor blood sugar control later in the day, which can lead to obesity.
10- When you move your legs around while standing, it actually activates the nervous system. This means that you can exercise without even doing anything at all, including walking.
11- The muscle movement is so effective that the weight loss associated with a standing desk is actually more than 80% more than regular exercise! This means that just sitting for a few minutes burns more calories than 30 minutes of leisurely walking.
12- In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, people who stood for an hour a day had a 30% lower risk of heart disease than those who sat for an hour per day. This reduced risk remained significant even after they had moved away from the standing desk.
13- According to research published in the British Medical Journal, people who stand while they work can have better digestion and more regular bowel movement while sitting at their desks.
14- The Wall Street Journal recently polled more than 650 medical professionals and found that almost 4 out of 5 clinical researchers agreed with this statement: “Your body never tires when you are standing up. You can work longer and harder with less fatigue.”
15- A study by the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that people who stand while they work doubled the amount of fat they burned compared to those who sat.
16- In a recent meta-analysis, researchers found that people who switched from sitting to standing had a 55% lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes than those who continued to sit. They also had a 56% lower risk of heart disease and a 59% lower risk of early death.
17- While exercise leads to more emotional stability, a home standing desk can lead to faster recovery times. Staying on your feet makes you more alert and more able to handle pressure situations.
18- A study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that standing can make you feel like you’re 4 to 10 years younger than you are. It can also keep your body in a better shape than sitting.
19- In a study from the University of Auckland, people with type 2 diabetes who stood for an hour four days per week had lower fasting levels of glucose and triglyceride compared to those who sat. The researchers concluded that standing for this long but intermittently was just as effective as a more intense plan of regular exercise in lowering blood sugar levels.
20- It’s not just the muscles that stand to benefit from standing desks. According to research by Dr. Joan Vernikos, who served as NASA’s first fitness consultant for 40 years, standing up straight can make your organs healthier by changing the way fluids move through them.
Final Words
Those are 20 reasons you should definitely consider getting a standing desk, and we’re sure there are even more! Now it’s time to take the next step and start standing up. You’ll be glad you did.