Sitting more than 6hrs/day increases likelihood of premature death | Hacker News Reader

Sitting more than 6hrs/day increases likelihood of premature death

weightology.net

46 pointsyewweitan50 comments

I post this every chance I get: America seems to be a third-world nation when it comes to office environments. Here in Denmark (and the rest of Scandinavia seems to be the same) I have never worked in an office without motorized desks that you can stand at while working if you so desire. This is across scores of companies from smallish startups to big corporations, and it isn't limited to IT companies. I have also never seen a cubicle in any company I have worked at (except one built from cardboard boxes by a visiting American consultant who was distracted by the open office plan).

I have no idea why the U.S. is so backwards in this area. But I can say with emphasis that I would never work in a cubicle, and I would need some seriously good reasons to not get a motorized desk. I just put this in my own office at home: http://www.conset.dk/product/prodone/4105/Serie-501-19-bredd...

I guess 18 hrs a day is kind of bad then :)

The problem for programmers is that you are never so productive as when you get into a flow state, and can stay "in the zone" for long periods that pass in what seems like seconds.

So breaking off flow states has a heavy negative impact on how much you can achieve.

Changing to a standing position doesn't have to break you out of the flow.

There are very few things as distracting as a complete change of posture, especially if it's forced/programmed. I can understand that you can get up and pace around while thinking about a problem, but unfortunately daily work has too few interesting problems and too much continuous moderately challenging tasks.

Go and get a drink every so often

Or keep a pitcher of water on your desk, and you'll have to go to the bathroom every once in a while.

This is one of the reasons staying hydrated is recommended on long flights - it forces you to get up and move at some point.

But still no matter how much water you drink, you're not going to average more than a few minutes an hour going to the bathroom (unless you have a medical condition). That is not going to make a noticeable dent in the 8-10 hours of sitting you're doing.

But still, no matter how long your snorkel, you're not going to average more than a few breaths of fresh air per minute. Will that make a noticeable dent in the 8-10 hours of snorkeling you're doing? :)

Breaks are good, but they're not going to significantly reduce the time you spend sitting.

I recently "constructed" myself a standing desk out of about 20 reams of cheap printer paper and it actually works quite well and is easy to adjust. The monitor is on one stack, the keyboard on another, and the mouse on a third.

Also, I'm unlikely to run out of printing paper anytime soon.

http://drp.ly/kwP

Do you have a lot of earthquakes around there?

Hmm, SF Bay Area. Interesting point.

Pardon me, but was that a pun?

Not if I'm understanding correctly. Russell is just making fun of the fact that the setup looks incredible unstable.

Or his user name being "tectonic".

I don't think it's so much standing versus sitting so much as how much movement one does throughout the day. A person could be standing in a fixed position which would be far more unhealthy than a fixed sitting position. I remember reading a quote from an extremely old man who said the secret was simple to "keep moving". Movement seems pretty clear to me the most important activity, since it keeps your cells active and fluids flowing. Any state of immobility will eventually put strain on whichever body part is taking the most pressure or work.

According to the study, there are actually people that sit 3 or less hours in a day? Apologies if I missed a key element in the article, but how is this possible that out of about 16 hours of waking hours that only 3 are sitting? I literally cannot see how a complete 13 hours can be spent otherwise.

Surgeons. Interventionalists. Possibly construction workers and other manual laborers.

Even they have to sit down to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then at home, what are they doing between the hours of 6pm to 10 or 11pm that they're not doing some form of sitting with their family? And even at work, the professions you mention, I have to believe are sitting at the very least half an hour throughout their work day, not including lunch. So that plus meals is already one and a half hours minimum, meaning at home at night, every night, they're spending 1.5 out of about 4.5 hours sitting. And remember this is every day. So what is a person, after a full work day doing for those 3 non-sitting hours. And if you say goig to the gym, even gym rats are sitting a considerable amount of time during workouts. And I didn't even include the possibility of sitting while driving, though I guess you could give the possibility they are standing on a bus or train. But really, in all honesty, I cannot imagine but an incredibly rare number of people with an extreme non-sitting lifestyle would exist.

Construction workers often eat standing up. But time spent driving is far harder to avoid.

How many surgeons that you know are getting home at 6pm? I'm not saying that they never sit for X hours in a given day, but I'm saying that there will be plenty of days when they don't. Remember, this is in response to a question about who (if anyone) might go for a day without sitting 3 hours. There are a few realistic options-that's the extent of the argument I'm trying to make.

I do want to buy a good, adjustable standing desk. Any recommendations?

FWIW, I personally got myself a basic ELFA set http://www.containerstore.com/shop/elfa/bestSellingSolutions... . Cost me $350 down here in australia with a simple two desk setup. Also had to go through the hassle of getting a handyman to set it up, and then a comfy bar stool for switching between sitting and standing.

Closer to $500, and not as much surface area as a regular desk, but great Swedish quality and definitely a relief for my back.

An ironing board + 2 dumbbells under the laptop.

I use the FREDRIK desk from IKEA. It is adjustable, it is a standing desk, and does not look like it should fall apart anytime soon - what more could you ask for?

I switched to a FREDRIK after the previous HN discussion on standing desks. In general, I am quite happy with it, but some notes from my experience:

You cannot adjust the height of the shelves without taking most of the desk apart. The increments are fairly course, so it may be difficult to get the height right -- I had to dig up the riser which came with my Microsoft Natural keyboard.

I use it with an IKEA bar stool and often switch between sitting and standing a few times during the day.

picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuno/5053375629/

I will second this. Make sure you're looking at the $150 Fredrik "Computer work station", not the $100 Fredrik "Desk". The Fredrik has extremely solid steel support. I've used it for over a year and a half, most of that time as a standing desk, and have disassembled and reassembled it at least a half-dozen times (for height-adjustment of the desk or shelves or for moving). It holds the weight of a 24" iMac, a second display, a stereo receiver, and two shelf-lengths of books with no bending or bowing whatsoever. I even have a habit of leaning on it when I'm not typing, and it's held up to it perfectly.

That looks very interesting (particularly as it's a desk which is widely available across countries) but 98cm max-height seems a little short for a 6' 2" guy like me? I'm assuming that you elbows should still be at right angles (i.e., that the same rules apply whether sitting or standing)

I bought a GeekDesk a month ago and I love it. Typing from it right now. It's big and sturdy, fully adjustable. Can't go wrong with it. http://www.geekdesk.com/

I'm confused by their graphs. The horizontal axis is labeled MET-hours/week, but given that sleeping consumes 0.9 MET-hours; I'm unsure how someone do < 24.5 MET-hours in a week.

I'm guessing from the text that they have ignored time spent sleeping (i.e considered it to be 0 MET-hours)

Much more than that. Almost any waking activity >= 1 MET

When people who have stiff muscles sit for long periods, cortisol levels increase, as muscles need to work constantly to keep them in position. Sustained high cortisol levels has a lot of negative impacts on health.

But if flexibility and good circulation are restored to these muscles and the sheaths around them, the muscles can easily handle keeping a person upright and cortisol levels are normal.

During the follow-up period, 11,307 men and 7,923 women died.

FROM WHAT ?!

Sheesh, I re-read the article twice and I don't understand what they died from.

I have been thinking about getting one of those "walking desks". Can they be used with coding or is it too much of distraction?

Interesting Hacker News Discussion about standing instead of sitting (around 5 month ago): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1311857

I disagree.

In economies which are predominantly Services http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_sector...

the life expectancy is better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expec...

As I've been slowly recovering from back injury/surgery over the past few years, I've been unable to sit for long periods of time. In order to be able to write software at all I've had to construct a laying down desk where I look up through a glass table at the monitor.

I wonder, does this improve my odds wrt to the article? Or rather, is it that 6+ hours of waking inactivity increases the likelihood of premature death? (either sitting or laying down)

I guess, laying down is by definiton a kind of waking inactivity, too. So it will have those adverse effects similar to the sitting with one exception (obvious): In laying down your back is under much smaller stress.

Considering driving a vehicle or taking the bus/train is usually a sitting activity, to get down to the 3 hours or below mentioned in the article you'd basically have to have

a) a standing desk

b) a job that doesn't involve sitting

Has anyone proven, by the way, that a standing desk actually solves things?

Most people that I know who work or have worked in the service industry say that standing around is much more uncomfortable than actively moving about. I can't find the source at the moment, but I do remember reading an article essentially stating that humans physically aren't meant to really just "stand still" for extended periods (hours) - we should be moving about.

I think the soviets forced prisoners to stand as a form of torture. Standing still apparently literally destroys your legs after some time.

i.e. varicose veins.

It's actually kind of cool how it works. Your legs have one-way valves in the blood vessels. Normally, the flexing muscles help pump the blood back up the leg by pinching the vessels. When you stand still, there is no flexing and no pumping, and the blood pools in your legs.

You don't really have to stand still, you can fidget around. Stand on one leg, switch to the other. Shake a little to the music, etc.. Switch to sitting from time to time. If you're hardcore you can even get a treadmill to go with it.

If you're hardcore you can even get a treadmill to go with it.

So in a recent episode of PAX TV they showed one of the penny arcade creators had a gaming system installed in front of a treadmill. Obviously programming's going to be a lot more difficult while walking than playing a video game, so perhaps program the treadmill to move forward a few feet every 30 seconds or so? It might be enough of a small change that you can learn to ignore the small movement while standing and may keep the body from getting stiff.

Get a bar-stool height chair for your work station and place it slightly too far away from your desk for sitting, encouraging you to 'perch', which is good for your posture, but may also allow you to switch more stream-lessly.

My wife recently pulled her hip by standing for long periods at a copy machine. I wouldn't really say it's better than sitting. However, I suppose when every vein in your legs has gone varicose, it's going to be very hard for DVT's to form when you are sitting.

Venous stasis is a part of Virchow's triad (for developing thrombosis) and thrombophlebitis is a common complication of varicose veins. I wouldn't be looking forward to varicose veins just yet ;-)

Does this mean it would be a good thing to shorten time spent in school? I hated those 6-7 hours in the classroom, most of it was wasted and I wish that the next generation doesn't have to go through it too.

Just to add, the authors themselves note that "this is an observational study and cannot establish cause and effect."

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