Standing desks 'increase pain' and slow down mental ability, study suggests | Hacker News Reader

Standing desks 'increase pain' and slow down mental ability, study suggests

telegraph.co.uk

71 pointsStratoscope44 comments

> Researchers at Curtin University in Australia observed 20 participants working at standing desks for two hours.

Hah, next.

Reminds me of this: https://io9.gizmodo.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-choc...

That's amazing. Grey hat hacking for social good. Sometimes you need to exploit the inefficiencies you're bothered by to illustrate their weakness, which hopefully makes society patch it up.

The standard for pushing papers in social sciences is as low as ever.

Back pain study. How is this "social sciences"?

They can't describe their back pain mathematically /s

Back pain is pretty hard to quantify. A lot of perception involved rather than actual physiology. (most of the time you don't see any actual back problem when doing clinical investigation, at least nothing noticeable with typical methods).

Do you have a link to a better researched paper?

Traditionally, claims of a specific effect are treated skeptically until adequate evidence is given, and the burden of producing that evidence falls to the people making the claim. This, of course, goes both ways when it comes to the standing desk question.

small sample size, no control, laughable time span -- why are we talking about this study?

> laughable time span

Maybe participants refused to stand more?

None of those are inherently fatal, either alone or in combination. To illustrate, imagine I did a study where I took 20 people, subjected them to a 10 minute ice bath, followed by a chest X-ray, and then put them naked in a steel cage and lowered the cage to the bottom of a swimming pool for 20 minutes (yes, the pool is full of water). Study participants are not told beforehand that they will be going into water.

And suppose further that 9 of them are still alive when I pull them out of the water. Not only are they alive, they are conscious, alert, and show no ill effects from 20 minutes underwater.

That would be a study worth talking about despite the sample size and lack of control and short time span.

Those would not be a fatal problems because we already know a lot about what happens to humans in general who spend 20 minutes without diving equipment underwater. We have a good idea of what the probability is for a human to survive such a thing, and can estimate the probability that my sample included 9 such people. It would be close to zero. Heck, even if I had the misfortune of accidentally getting my sample at a free diving competition the chances that I'd get 9 people who could hold their breaths for 20 minutes would be very low.

From a knowledge building perspective, this study is not helpful. All this does is show that maybe there is something to look at in a more well funded study.

> All this does is show that maybe there is something to look at in a more well funded study.

That's what lies at the start of almost all knowledge in science.

Two hours?! Flagged the post.

One of the benefits of working from home is you can adopt any position you want. My favorite one is being reclined in a chair with my feet on the desk and keyboard in my lap; it doesn't help with the lack of exercise but it completely solves back pain.

But in most offices it seems to send a strong "slacking" signal; people go out of their way to come to you and laugh or ask if you would maybe need a cocktail as well.

During a rough problem code session, I leaned back in my chair, hands behind my head, deep in thought about the problem, when the VP of engineering walked by. A few hours later, my boss called me into his office to let me know he complained about the money being spent on engineering and "...some engineer just sitting back, taking it easy in his office!".

This sounds like one of those dad jokes people used to fax each other in offices in the 1980s.

Dear VP of engineering, as a programmer, I sometimes need to stare off into space to visualize a complex system. <my boss> should have explained this, but didn’t, which I think is a failure to do their job.

Sounds like a good way to get fired! Although I think everywhere has people in management that don’t understand how programmers minds work. It’s too difficult to try to educate them without them feeling like they are being patronised. Maybe time to move on anyway.

My old VP was a terrible micromanager and also a former programmer way back when. He would make comments similar to this one weekly or a few times a month. My company just opened up a new office with random areas to hang out, ping pong tables and the like. Funny watching him pace around all day while everyone else enjoys themselves.

How do you make someone remember what is was like?

> Although I think everywhere has people in management that don’t understand how problem solving works

Fixed that for you. This isn't exclusive to programming.

Resign. Find another company.if your management chain nitpicks on this, it is a sign of greater trouble.

Sometimes I prefer to stand; other times sit; and others reclined on the sofa (or in a chair). In general, I feel like new correlates with standing, while refinement is sitting, and finishing can be done reclined.

What's common to all is the amount of space in front of me. I don't seem to like my desk parked facing and against the wall. It feels too restricting.

I know. Odd.

The secret to a standing desk is to put a treadmill underneath it.

I have a fully jarvis and I almost never just stand at it. I do walk 5 miles a day at 2 mph though and I can say without hyperbole it has changed my life.

Note: The immediate reaction I always get from people is "oh my god, how can you work or type or mouse while walking." 2 mph is not fast at all. Sometimes I even walk slower than that. Sometimes I'll walk at 1 mph and just shift my weight around to massage out kinks in my legs. People develop this mentality around treadmills where you're supposed to be constantly trying to walk faster, as if that's the metric for your skill at using a desk treadmill. The activity is quite literally not a race.

I can only provide a personal observation. I've been a happy user of a sit-stand desk for more than three years, and one part of the results does sound plausible.

I tend to spend >70% of my time with the desk at standing height - dealing with emails, taking part in office chat (slack), and reviewing changes of all kinds. I have no problem doing some coding when standing up too. But when I need to do deeper code review, thoughtful research, or otherwise dive into a complex piece of code I find myself sitting down.

I like the standing mode. My back feels better for it, and indeed, if I spend too much time sitting down my back starts to complain. The ability to adjust the height freely feels like I have the best of both worlds.

I've been using a standing desk full time for about 2 years now. I spend a majority of my day standing.

In between standing I also walk and jog every few hours (roughly 5 miles a day, mostly fast walking). I also do about 50 push ups and situps as general exercise.

My job consists of writing code, constantly learning new things, creating video courses (around software development topics) and blogging. So I would say the cognitive requirements are pretty high but I don't feel standing hinders my progress in thinking through problems. I never once felt like I had to sit down to solve a problem.

Other than the first week of standing I have not experienced any muscle pains or aches. I feel good.

If anyone is curious, here's a couple of posts I've written about standing desks:

https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/build-a-home-made-standing-de...

https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/results-after-using-a-standin...

I recommend trying it out. Your own body will give you feedback on whether or not it's working out for you.

Probable study link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000368701...

HIGHLIGHTS

- Standing for a duration of 2 h led to a significant increase in low back discomfort among 20 participants.

- Use of a footstool during prolonged standing did not reduce low back discomfort.

- Upper lumbar lordosis moved towards usual standing lordosis when using a footstool.

- Lumbar postural movement during prolonged standing was not affected by a footstool.

- Lumbar erector spinae median frequency and amplitude were not affected by a footstool.

ABSTRACT

Prolonged standing is common in many occupations and has been associated with low back discomfort (LBD). No recent studies have investigated a footrest as an intervention to reduce LBD associated with prolonged standing. This study investigated the effect of a footrest on LBD and sought to determine if LBD changes were accompanied by changes in muscle fatigue and low back end-range posture and movement. Twenty participants stood for two 2-h trials, one with and one without a footrest. LBD, lumbar erector spinae electromyography, upper lumbar (UL) and lower lumbar (LL) angles were measured. A significant increase in LBD occurred in both conditions but the footrest did not significantly decrease LBD. The only significant finding between conditions was that UL lordosis became more similar to usual standing over time with footrest use. These findings suggest that footrest use may not reduce LBD development and that development of LBD with prolonged standing is unlikely to be due to muscle fatigue or end-range posture mechanisms.

Using a standing desk for a couple of months now. Most of the time I'm sitting, but somedays I prefer to stand for an hour to max 90 minutes.

After that the reverse effect sets in and I get the urge to sit again. In this regard I don't get the study. Using a standing desk to be more dynamic and switching the position is good, but standing long and sitting long are both problems in my book.

Mixing it up brings the benefit, which should be observed more closely here.

This is my experience as well. I don't use the standing position of my desk much, but I'm glad I have the option. Sometimes it helps me to get started or to not get distracted.

I have a very similar experience with sit-stand setups. I have one at home and had one at work.

I stand up for routine tasks (email etc.) and sit down for deeper work. I find standing unconsciously restricts breathing (core muscles contract) so makes me exhausted more rapidly. I rarely work standing for more than an hour.

Reading comments here it seems a very common experience.

I think no matter how many studies on the subject there will be, personal experience dictates how we'll do it. Like you I'm just glad the option now is now socially acceptable to be a bit more mobile when doing desk work.

I struggle to get creative when constrained to the chair and have noticed I go a lot more frequently to the whiteboard to brainstorm a problem now that I'm already standing at my desk. That doesn't mean I get better results, only that I find the office space offers more to me in general when I adopt that active stance. This is going to sound lazy, but I'm in an open office and i also find I am less resentful about having to walk out of the room to get some thinking space when I'm not having to sit down and get up again all the time.

One thing to note vis a vis long term health is that standing with good posture requires using your glutes, hamstrings and abdominal muscles. If you fully commit to a standing position and don't do some basic strength exercises in these areas you may end up tilting your pelvis forwards a lot, which makes the whole body tighten up. Ironically its people with back problems who are the most keen to adopt standing desks, but if you have a history of back problems or a diagnosed condition often the last thing you want is your whole body tightening up as this could encourage injuries. This is one reason why the general advice is not to underestimate the effort or concentration required to transition to a standing lifestyle, and to take it slowly and mindfully.

While it doesn't sound like a huge study, I do tend to agree with those conclusions, having worked with adjustable desks for a few years now, due to orthopedic problems which make it uncomfortable to sit all day...

I much prefer to be sitting when in "flow" for coding, but I stand when doing more bureaucratic tasks. And many times, it is nice to just be able to switch positions every few minutes, more so than trying to be on my feet all day.

Hmmm, I definitely prefer to stand when in a creative flow state. Any activity that requires a lot of reading I prefer to sit for.

My preferred coding position is lying propped up in bed.

I'd like to try that, but I prefer developing on a desktop PC with a 24" monitor, and that could be a bit clumsy to get into bed...

I’d like to see an evaluation of varying standing/sitting versus only sitting. I try to stand/sit alternating every hour or so.

While I am curious how this will pan out long term I do think you need to adjust to one and some people will try standing too long too early and might actually hurt themselves.

I have an uplift desk, one of the L shape models. I like it but I found one benefit I did not realize when I bought it. I could have a proper sitting height desk. Don't under estimate that! The majority of desk are one height fits all and that does allow for proper arm angle which can lead to fatigue.

I recommend a motion board or even a small treadmill if you are so inclined. If neither suits them a foot stool to alternate raising a foot higher than another.

For periods of standing longer than 2 hours. Also no data included in the article about whether this varies with the fitness of individuals.

Anyway, I thought we already knew that staying in one position - any position - for too long is detrimental? Isn't that why we have sit-stand desks?

Were the study participants used to working with a standing desk? One can't simply switch to a standing desk, you have to introduce it gradually, in order not to hurt yourself.

More than one study is needed before you can conclude that allowing people to stand while working is not a good thing. We don't even have to population details to determine if the study population was properly selected and that all variables had been controlled for. The fact that the study was of only 20 people doesn't bolster the idea that the study was any good.

I can relate somewhat. I just got a stool which acts as a kind of standing support when high, and a nice active sitting stool when lowered. The first few days I used it, I barely got anything done - I kept going in circles with small problems. Then I switched back to my Aeron (which I'm not a huge fan) and it was like the fog lifted.

This reminds me of those “books are better than iPads” studies where the iPad users were forced to use maximum brightness in a fixed position while book users were given complete freedom. Unsurprisingly the “iPad users” performed worse on comprehension tests after the reading exercise.

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