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Comment by nbosse | Hacker News Reader

I'm confused by this... It seems to me like the relevant part is "playing computer games is good" not "the type of sitting you do matters". Playing computer games while standing might be even better

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"A professor at the Institute for Work and Health found that people who stand throughout the day at their jobs have a 2.2 times higher risk of developing heart disease than those people who sit during the day." https://www.ergolink.com.au/blog/standing-vs-sitting-at-a-de...

I can think of a lot of confounding factors for that. Are they just looking at standing desks, or also at the numerous blue collar and service industry jobs that demand long hours of standing at machines and registers? If it's just the former, then there's the question of what kind of people choose standing desks over sitting desks. Is it people worried about their health but don't take the time to exercise outside of work and think standing will be enough? If the latter applies, then there's facts about the stresses and complications of being less financially secure, such as less access to healthcare, longer working hours, poorer diets.

Certainly but correlations not working make it unlikely that sitting is a dominant factor in current health problems. Looking at the details described it makes sense that sitting is a form of idleness and idleness is possible in a standing job. Therefore idleness could more reasonably be the dominant factor with other correlations then contributing more for idle standers than idle sitters, etc.

I was a little miffed that this blog didn't include a link to that particular study, especially with how vague the citation is, so I went and found the original publication[0].

Of note, they have a "Setting the record straight" addendum[1] that includes a couple important quotes:

"Misconception #1: Office workers should now be confused about whether they should sit or stand, and about whether sit/stand stations are a good idea. They shouldn’t be, says Smith. The study’s main finding was about workers who are required to stand for long periods (i.e. five hours or more) throughout their work shift, without opportunities to sit. Extending this to any worker who stands (e.g. an office worker using a sit-stand desk) is not correct. This is because office workers who stand at these types of workstations likely have the option to sit down when they get tired or when they feel pain in their legs and back."

and

"Misconception #2: We no longer have to worry about the negative health effects of prolonged sitting, thanks to this study. Not so fast, says Smith. There was nothing in this study to refute the research on the health consequences of a sedentary lifestyle. Much of that research is about sitting too much throughout the day—at work, while commuting and at home. This study only focused on prolonged sitting and prolonged standing at work.

"And even within the study, another finding about prolonged sitting at work got lost in the coverage. Yes, prolonged standing occupations were linked with twice the risk of heart disease as prolonged sitting jobs. However, prolonged sitting jobs were still linked, among men, with a 40 per cent higher risk of heart disease compared to jobs that involve a mix of standing, sitting and walking."

[0]: https://www.iwh.on.ca/newsletters/at-work/90/standing-too-lo...

[1]: https://www.iwh.on.ca/news/study-on-prolonged-standing-and-h...

Thank you, the nuance makes all the difference.

"workers who are required to stand without opportunities to sit" sounds like it's little to do with posture and everything to do with the kind of jobs that don't let people sit typically being lower paid gigs for a different demographic...

It's also possible that these jobs tend to be shift work that completely mess up your sleep cycle. Shift workers have ~10 years lower life expectancy.

I was thinking about posture as well, including building bad habits, possibly affecting breathing too which would turn everything around on its head, raising blood pressure and inflammation, affecting sleep and then causing avalanche cascading side effects throughout the human body.

I have for about 15 years used a stool to sit on at work, rather than a desk chair that I can slump in. I have found I feel much better - the stool forces my upper body to be actively held up and balanced; also, when I do go to meetings, instead of being annoyed at sitting in some dumb conference room, I am a little happy to be able to slump like a normal slouch.

I put a zafu (kapok filled, and not too full so its soft/adjustable) on the stool, and adjust the desk height so I don't have to reach up at all to touch the keyboard.

I also do a lot of zazen on a zafu (with legs crossed) so keeping my torso upright is pretty ingrained into my body.

This is just anecdata, but my dad suffered with back pain his entire life (included multiple herniated spinal disks), knock wood, I haven't. If I skip the check on the keyboard height and find I am reaching up for a while, I will get shoulder soreness, but so far early enough to function as a warning to lower it.

Sitting upright as tho you are a world honored one does I think affect the entire mind/body system in a healthy way :)

Spot on. I used to have back pain and all sorts of discomfort throughout body, neck shoulders, etc. until I figured out how to properly sit. Luckily I haven't had any issues lately, I'm in my mid 40s and have been in a much better shape than I was in my mid 20s. I don't use a stool necessarily but I try not to use the back support too much and for me the sitting area must be rigid, any cushion can mess up with my sitting position.

Bingo. As they say, “motion is lotion.” Staying in any position for a long time (even a “good” posture) is going to cause problems. Better being active if you’re passive, resting if you’re active, moving around, taking breaks, and basically just switching it up. All more important than doing one static pose or repetitive motion for an entire day.

As they say, any health study that doesn’t control for economic status is just studying the effect of economic status.

> Sitting and standing for long periods have their pros and cons so which one should you choose?

False dichotomy. Choose moderation if and when you can, like most things in life.

It's probably more "active" sitting. If you are a gamer (especially computer gamer), you are generally not just sitting back "relaxing". Your body is more engaged and you are constantly moving your body in some way.

Sitting and watching tv you can literally be completely still for long periods of time.

Depends on the game. I'd say I have two modes of sitting when programming, one is passive and my muscles ache. Another is active, when I try to use belly muscles (abs?) to keep my posture etc but... When I fall deeply into thinking I will eventually release muscles and feel worse later.

I wonder if there could be an application that would encourage active sitting

This is what I was thinking about too. I thought that "Active" sitting was going to be something about making sure you're not slouching, but rather adjusting yourself every so often to make sure you're sitting up straight instead of slouching off the chair.

They mention reading as an example of active sitting despite the fact that it requires no more motion than changing the channel (or whatever the modern day equivalent is).

Consider StarCraft: Brood War, a legendary real-time strategy game. To be played well, it requires between 200-400 actions per minute (APM), with some players going even beyond 500 APM. Some games last for more than an hour. Players use both the mouse and the keyboard. There's always more to do than you can realistically do. You are always putting out fires, managing your economy, producing units, securing income, carrying multiple attacks at once, fighting tactical battles, and executing strategic goals. Yeah I'd call that a pretty active sitting :)

Let's be honest, most of those actions are useless keybashing and clicking. It's easy to get a high APM.

In Smash? Sure. In StarCraft? I’ve never measured it, but I wouldn’t say ‘most’ by any stretch.

This is certainly true in the beginning of a game. Players claim to do this to warm up. However, in a busy confrontation there is no reason to spam any actions that are not directly contributing towards your endeavor. If you spam useless actions during a fight, your opponent who does not will best you.

The game's been played competitively for more than 25 years now, people still earn their living plying StarCraft. You wont find a single one of them with APM below 200. Having their livelihoods and legacies depending on this, do you think they'd be repeatedly doing something useless instead of optimizing?

Anyways, I think you are missing the point that this thread is about active sitting. I imagine there isn't much difference to the meaning behind movement: movement is movement, meaningful or not.

I am thinking about stance while sitting lately. I am breathing and speaking more from my belly and that starts with posture which is neither slouched forward or back.

Me too and it's something I've become more aware as I got older. In short the lesson I learned is be well stacked and relaxed at the same time with the gaze forward. Also be able to freely move around around a fixed point if needed (the sit bones connecting to a sturdy surface of a chair). I find that swivel chairs or too soft of a chair could mess up stability/proprioception. A fixed/rigid chair at the right height helps me plant my feet better into the ground, forming some a sort of a tripod for better stability. Also an eye level monitor and a keyboard in reach without having to stretch out the arms helps keep a better posture. Another thing I practice is not leaning on the backrest too much. I noticed my kid shifting to bad postures when doing homework. Just gently telling him about it from time to time and making him be aware of his improved and what a correct posture should be seems to have improved his habits.

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