Contents:
- Medical Video: Standing Desk | What Are The Standing Desk Health Benefits (2018)
- 1. By standing up, your body will burn more calories
- 2. More standing reduces the risk of early pain and death from cardiovascular disease
- 3. Standing while working reduces the risk of back pain
- 4. Working with a standing table helps control blood sugar
Medical Video: Standing Desk | What Are The Standing Desk Health Benefits (2018)
The use of standing tables has become more popular in recent years with regard to various theories that state sitting too long is dangerous for health. This is because someone who works in an office environment tends to be less active and mostly increases the time of sedentary activity. Even though you have exercised, being less active can be dangerous for your health.
Standing table or standing desk basically a table with a flat surface that is higher or adjustable so that it can be used in a standing position. However, that does not mean we must continue to stand up. Changing sitting and standing positions will reduce sitting time so we become more active. Here are some benefits of using a table while standing.
1. By standing up, your body will burn more calories
Too few calories make us more likely to store the calories needed. Saving and burning calories is related to the activities we do, if we are less active, we tend to store more calories. If this happens for a long time, it will cause obesity.
Actively moving not only by exercising, just standing when you are working you tend to be more active. Something research find standing during work burns about 170 calories. The accumulation of calories burned for one week will be far more than if you only sit while working.
2. More standing reduces the risk of early pain and death from cardiovascular disease
This is closely related to sedentary behavior that has been proven to be a cause of various cardiovascular diseases. Something systematic review from various prospective studies showing habits of sedentary behavior such as too long sitting for years will affect a person's risk of cardiovascular disease. Individuals who sit too long increase the risk of cardiovascular disease by 1.47 times higher, and the increase in deaths from heart disease in individuals is too long to sit at 90%.
The benefits of standing will increase oxygen metabolism which is good for cardiovascular health. This is evidenced by a research which shows a significant increase in oxygen metabolic volume compared to sitting. This is also the reason why working while standing will burn more calories.
3. Standing while working reduces the risk of back pain
Back pain is a complaint commonly experienced by someone sitting too long. The sitting position affects the shape of the spine while working, because often we sit with the position of the spine that is not straight. The impact is the pressure on one part of the segment causing pain after sitting too long.
The benefits of standing tables and back pain have been tested in a research project named take-a-stand. The results showed that the use of standing tables reduced sitting time by 66 minutes per day, and the results reduced the proportion of pain experienced by the study subjects by 54% within 4 weeks of use.
4. Working with a standing table helps control blood sugar
After lunch at the office we usually go back to work and sit back at the table, but do you know that blood sugar levels generally increase after we eat? Blood sugar levels will be higher when too many sedentary activities after lunch. One of study in an office shows that individuals who work standing after lunch experience an increase in blood sugar levels 43% lower compared to workers who immediately sit back. This shows, doing activities after lunch will control the amount of blood sugar levels so that it can prevent insulin deficiency that causes diabetes.
The main reason for avoiding sitting too long is its effect on the risk of heart disease and diabetes and this has been supported by various studies. But one research recently also found a level of a protein in the body that was a predictor of cancer (C reactive protein) which is higher in people who sit too long. Although not yet a clear mechanism, this shows that random behavior has the potential to cause cancer.
The habit of sitting too long is a behavior pattern that is formed from environmental conditions such as when working, watching TV or playing video games, and this will usually be very difficult to change. The biggest benefit of standing table selection is getting us to not behave as sedentary and tend to actively move. Although the use of standing tables may be difficult for some people who are not accustomed to or have draining jobs that are more comfortable in sitting conditions, changing sitting and standing positions every 30 minutes will be beneficial to reduce the time too long.
READ ALSO:
- 5 Alternative Healthy Chairs for the Office
- 5 Light Sports You Can Do at the Office
- 5 Health Problems Due to Sitting Too Long
