Calorie burner: How much better is standing up than sitting?
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
Unfortunately, for the moment, I simply cannot use a stand up desk full time. I spend around 8 months out of the year travelling. At home, I have a stand up desk, and I really love it. When I'm travelling, though, I spend most of my time sitting while working at a desk, which isn't too good.
One thing I've found useful is to stretch for 5 minutes for every hour of sitting. People look at me like I'm crazy, but it makes a demonstrable difference. Kelly Starrett goes into great detail about the effects of sitting and how stretching can help in his book 'Supple Leopard'; it's worth picking up, in my opinion. (http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Supple-Leopard-Preventing-Per...).
The couch stretch is particularly good at counteracting tight hips caused by sitting. (http://fitnerdz.com/2013/05/31/fitnerdz-couch-stretch/). Get into position, hold it for 100s, swap legs, hold it for another 100s, and repeat for every hour of sitting. It makes a huge difference to the legs, hips, and back.
A colleague had suffered the same problem and gave me instructions like taking a hourly break and doing a stretching excercise (rotate palm downwards and hold it flat with outstretched arm bending slightly upwards against a wall while tilting the head in the opposite direction for thirty seconds in three repeats), worked wonders for me and I've not had any problems since (still doing those stretches, although not as rigorously).
Considering that truly unhealthy and sick people (who will soon die) probably sit more then they stand, if you remove those people from the dataset, wouldn't the interpretation become that sitting is actually extremely beneficial for the average person who will end up outliving a non-sitter person by several years?
However, when trying to find the actual study to see if they had controlled for any pre-existing conditions, I found this paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1008580/pdf/brji... which seems to indicate that in fact, people of heavier builds were more likely to become drivers than conductors, and conductors with heavier builds were more likely to switch to becoming drivers.
So actually, it seems that the original study may be flawed, in the way you describe. While it did study people from a young and healthy age, it hadn't considered pre-existing weight or genetic differences between drivers and conductors, and it looks like that may actually play a substantial role in the difference in findings.
If what you say is true (studies tend to try to account for these things, e.g. they can show that the effect of sitting exists even after accounting for exercise/activity on the job) then the correct interpretation is that we don't know the causal effect.
Terrible reporting here. This has nothing to do with sitting, it has to do with inactivity. You can have an active lifestyle and still sit all day. Later it states
> blood glucose levels fell back to normal levels after a meal far more quickly on the days when the volunteers stood than when they sat.
So what? If you don't have a medical condition related to elevated blood glucose having meal related glucose levels take longer to return to baseline shouldn't cause problems. I'm not aware of any research stating otherwise. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
There are problems due to sitting though, such as
> a sharp reduction in the activity of an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase
and as they mentioned standing burns far more calories (the article said 50/h) which is a good thing.
I'm all for standing but it'd be nice for reporters to get their facts straight.
The reasoning is that standing activates enzymes and gene expression triggered by activity in your slow-twitch high-fatigue-resistant muscles which run on fatty acids, which has all sorts of benefits for metabolism, body composition, and overall health.
Our analysis assumes that there is a causal relationship
between sedentary behaviour and mortality.
However, previous studies have shown that heavier people are more likely to choose sedentary jobs: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1008580/pdf/brji... . So in fact, the causation may go in the other direction; people who are heavier, or less healthy in other ways, may be more likely to choose sedentary jobs or sedentary lifestyles.
It would be interesting to see if anyone has actually been able to demonstrate a causal effect based on changes in behavior. Does changing from a sitting desk to a standing desk actually help? I don't think that has been conclusively demonstrated.
That's my point. That there are reasons why standing is better than sitting but the article got them mostly wrong.
See this lecture of Dr. Lustig on sugars and how they are being metabolized in our body: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
http://www.andrewkimblog.com/2013/02/quick-commentary-on-dr-...
Haven't tried three yet. :)
Get the big and thickest one, the small is just too small if you stand with legs slightly apart.
It trains your muscles while you stand.
Guidelines for Retail Grocery Stores
Ergonomics for the Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders
U.S. Department of Labor
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
OSHA 3192-06N
https://www.osha.gov/ergonomics/guidelines/retailgrocery/ret...
Use footrests and anti-fatigue mats in areas where workers stand for prolonged periods. Standing on anti-fatigue mats, as compared to bare floors, provides a noticeable improvement in comfort.
There's a few designs. They usually look something like this: http://images.newpig.com/wcsstore/NewPigUSCatalogAssetStore/...
or behind a bar or in a kitchen they usually look like this: http://www.madmatterinc.com/images/comfort_flow_thumb_8vhy.j...
If you ever watch Bar Rescue with Jon Taffer he gets really upset if he goes into a bar and there isn't anti-fatigue mats behind the bar.
A lot of people put them in their kitchen for when they are on their feet preparing food or doing dishes.
http://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Joe-Anti-Fatigue-Beveled-3-Fee...
They are not well known enough. The difference you feel standing on bare floor all day vs an anti-fatigue mat all day is the difference between night and day.
Why do you say that carbs should be your main energy source? I've seen no sound scientific evidence to support that claim.
I don't eat many carbs any more, and I'm living a lot more healthily as a result. It works for me. However, please do note that I'm not interested in getting into a debate with you on this -- that's the reason I wrote "sugary carbs"[1], which pretty much everyone agrees are bad for you.
[1]: Glucose, fructose, wheat flour are the most common culprits
I don't know what it's like for others but being a freelancer going from hot desk to hot desk, client to client and doing most of the travel by car or train - This is very hard to maintain since everything has been designed for sitting.
I might try standing on the tube from now on though but i might look weird if it's relatively empty.
- They have a lot or big luggage or a backpack with them.
- They are only going 1 stop or two.
- They have a medical condition where sitting down and standing back up again is difficult, so it is easier to stay standing.
- They have been sitting all day at work and want to stretch their legs.
- They want to leave the seats for other people who wish to sit if the train fills up, whereas they don't mind standing.
- Standing is more comfortable for them than sitting.
- A lot of times they are reading, so I think reading might be easier standing than sitting perhaps, but I don't know because I have never tried to read on the train.
Nobody will question you.
Someone else I know had some kind of nerve problem in the back of her legs and she preferred to stand unless she was going to sit for a long period of time. I guess constant standing/sitting motion aggravated it.
No one looks weird at you.
Try it, you will find that sometimes it is much more fun to stand than to be seated.