Sitting All Day is Risky. Is a Standing Desk Right For You?

Do you know how many hours per week you spend sitting in front of your computer? Lifehacker founder, programmer and author Gina Trapani was curious enough to use personal analytics to find out. As she wrote in a blog post earlier today, her findings were not promising.

Using time management Web app RescueTime, Trapani, discovered that she was spending as much as 48 hours sitting down in one week. For Web workers like her, this is probably not unusual.

Sponsor

That remaining utterly sedentary for large amounts of time can be harmful to one’s health is not exactly breaking news. But as the New York Times reported last week, a new study has shown that even regular exercise may not be enough to curtail the increased risk of heart attacks and other health troubles that our increasingly sedentary lifestyles present.

Trapani, who was concerned about the impact that 48 weekly hours of sitting may have on her health, decided to convert to a workstation built for standing at eye-level with the computer screen, rather than sitting in a chair, which is not included in the set-up.

“Now that I’m standing, I pace, dance, and fidget a lot more freely, which is just more natural activity and calorie burn built into my day,” writes Trapani.

In her post, Trapani answers pretty much all of the questions that come to mind: Does it hurt? Do you take breaks to sit? Are special shoes required? You name it.

What do you think? Could you stand at your desk all day, rather than sit? Are you concerned about the impact that sitting can have on your health? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Photo by Gina Trapani.

Discuss