Chapter 1 – We Sit Too Many Hours per Day

The workday has changed for many office-dwellers. Technology has progressed and the majority of office based tasks are now completed in front of a screen of some description. As a result many peoples work days are spent sitting down in front of that screen. When you combine that with travel time sitting in a car, train, or bus, and time spent at home watching TV, some office workers are sitting down nearly 80% of their work day!

Historic Differences

Humans were not always so sedentary. We began as hunter-gatherers, often walking or running 10-20 kilometres a day. We began to farm later in our evolution, raising crops and keeping animals. This was hard work, and it required movement, and burned a lot of energy. Over time the change in the nature of our work duties, coupled with the invention of mechanical and computerised assistance have decreased this energy consumption.

The science and research supporting movement in your office

Based on data measured by the Stand Up Australia study, most work time is sedentary – a staggering 77%. Stand Up Australia was a collaborative effort between Medibank Private, the University of Queensland’s Cancer Prevention Centre and Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute.

Dr David Dunstan of Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute and Dr Genevieve Healy of the University of Queensland are world leaders in this field of study contributing greatly to international attention for standing health benefits. The Stand Up movement is not limited to Australia.

International Research

In March 2013 an Asian study was posted in the PLOS Journal, which is a peer-reviewed, international online public publication for primary research findings. The study covered the Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour in South Asian Women. 

The goals of this study were to describe the sedentary and active behaviours of Asian women in urban areas. Women with and without dysglycemia were studied. Dysglycemia is a disorder in the regulation and metabolism of blood glucose levels. Insulin resistance, diabetes and hyperglycemia are conditions that worsen by the disregulation of blood sugar.

In this study of 2800 urban Asian women between the ages of 30 and 45 years, it was discovered that women are at higher risk for dysglycemia if they have more sedentary behaviour and less physical activity.

Sitting Is much Less Healthy than Standing

Enzymes in the body are responsible for metabolizing sugars and fats in your bloodstream. Movement stimulates the activity of these enzymes, which regulates your blood sugar and improves your cholesterol levels. Less movement results in lower activity of enzymes, contributing to a reduction in HDL good cholesterol, and possible weight gain and diabetes.

The Harvard Business Review found that spending too much time at a computer, or at conference table meetings, doesn’t always involve desks. However, it does involve sitting.

Office workers do more sitting than they do anything else. They average over nine hours a day sitting. They don’t pay attention to how much they sit, and that’s part of the problem. Sitting has been called the “smoking of our generation”, as far as health problems are concerned.

Study on Sedentary Behaviour

In a study published on July 7, 2014, from the UT Southwestern Medical Center, researchers discovered that sedentary behaviours may lower your cardio-respiratory fitness levels. This new evidence has suggested that just two hours of sedentary behaviour may be as harmful as 20 minutes of healthy exercise is beneficial.

This study was published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings online edition. It examined the association between daily exercise and fitness levels with sedentary types of behaviour, with data from more than 2,000 participants. They included in sedentary behaviour all low-level activities as far as energy expenditure is concerned. This included reading, watching television, driving and sitting. Their findings were suggestive that sedentary behaviour might be a significant determinant of cardio-respiratory fitness, with or without exercise.

Their data suggested that sedentary behaviour could lower a person’s fitness level, and that pursuing any movement during the day may be an important part of improving health and fitness, in addition to regular exercise. They discovered that any type of movement is a positive thing, if it breaks up a period of sedentary work or relaxation. You may switch positions at your desk, get up and stretch or pace when you’re on hold.

UT Southwestern researchers recommend that to stay more active, take short walks at your lunch break and other times through the day. They also recommended the use of a standing or treadmill desk.

Conclusions:

• Humans are hunter gatherers. We have evolved and are designed to move
• Office based workers are sedentary nearly 80% of the time
• Too much sitting being called the ‘smoking of our generation’

 

Chapter 2 – Health Issues from Sitting

Many health issues may be caused by a sedentary lifestyle. Obesity, Type II Diabetes, and Cardiovascular disease are all on the increase in industrialised nations and they have recently been linked to increased sitting. While you sit your body burns less energy, and your blood flows more slowly. This essentially puts your body into neutral, which it does need to do, but office based workers are doing this too much and it is creating problems. Reduced blood flow while sitting can allow the build-up of fatty acids that can clog the heart. In addition, as soon as you sit down enzymes that help break down fat drop by up to 90%.

A number of hyperlinks and references are provided to support the information in this chapter. Another excellent source for further information is the Cancer Prevention Resource centre at the University of Queensland.

Cardiovascular Issues

Prolonged sitting is linked to elevated cholesterol and high blood pressure. The simple act of sitting down increases blood pressure. People who are the most sedentary are much more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than people who spend more time standing and walking.

People with desk based jobs have twice the rate of heart disease as those with active jobs.

Pancreas Problems

The pancreas is the producer of insulin, which carries blood glucose to the cells, for energy. If your muscles are idle, they don’t respond as well to insulin. The pancreas begins over-producing the hormone, which may lead to diabetes.

Muscle Degeneration

When you sit your leg muscles effectively turn off, and many other muscles are just not used. Additional stress is also placed on your spine. Under-used and tight muscles will increase the likelihood of a musculoskeletal injury or related pain.

Hip muscles aid in your balance, but if you spend too much time sitting, the hip flexor muscles are not extended enough. They can become tight and short, which limits your range of motion and the length of your stride. Decreased mobility in the hip has been shown to cause elderly men and women to fall more easily.

Poor Circulation

Sitting for extended time periods slows the blood circulation in your legs, causing blood to pool. Problems that are caused by this development include varicose veins, swollen ankles or even dangerous, deep clots. This is a condition known as deep vein thrombosis or DVT. Compression hose may help the problem, as can a change in your lifestyle, with more activity and less sitting.

Neck Strains

If you sit at a desk when you work, your neck may be craned forward towards your keyboard. Some people tilt their heads to the side, to hold a phone to their ear while they type. This causes the cervical vertebrae to become strained. Slumping also overextends your back and shoulder muscles.

Back Problems

Sitting is not a natural position for the spine, especially the lumbar spine or lower back. The lower back must prop up the weight of the top half of the body, and the position we sit in can make it harder for the back to do its job. When you move, the discs in your back expand and then contract, to soak up nutrients and fresh blood. If you sit for a long period of time, your discs have uneven pressure on them.

Have you ever heard someone say they have a bad back and would prefer to stand? It is a common response and demonstrates the additional stress that is placed on the spine when sitting.

Cancer Risk

Prolonged sitting has been linked to the on-set of some cancers such as colon and endometrial cancers.

Conclusions:

• Long list of negative health impacts….ouch!
• Standing is a way to positively address health issues. Want to learn more? Read on!

 

Chapter 3 – Health Benefits of Standing

The human body was not built to sit all day. It was build for movement. From the beginning, humans ran from vicious predators, hunting animals and gathering plants for food. We are quite efficient at walking upright, and we are efficient long-distance travellers.

“Trust Me, I’m a Doctor”

A study and television documentary was done at UK’s University of Chester, and its methodology was simple. One group would sit and one group would stand. This study would help to determine why sitting is so damaging. The researchers wanted to see what would happen if they took people who usually sit in an office all day and have them spend several hours a day standing, instead.

Standing instead of sitting may seem odd, but it has been practiced for many years. Benjamin Franklin, Winston Churchill and Ernest Hemingway wrote at standing desks.

So, one group of real estate workers in the study was asked to stand for three hours or more per week. The volunteers – sitting and standing – wore movement monitors called accelerometers to record how much they moved. They wore monitors for their heart rate and had glucose monitors for constant blood sugar levels.

The researchers felt that the study would make a difference, but they were not sure how people would react. The subjects did stick with the program, and one volunteer who has arthritis said that standing improved her arthritis symptoms.

The University of Chester staff took measurements when volunteers sat and when they stood. They found striking differences. Blood glucose levels fell into normal levels with more speed when volunteers stood, as compared to the times when they were seated.

The heart rate monitors also showed that the standing volunteers were seeing more calories being burned. The heart rates were about 10 beats per minute higher on standing volunteers, which means they burned about 0.7 more of a calorie each minute. That doesn’t sound high, but it means about 50 calories per hour. If you extrapolate that out, it is approximately eight kilograms of fat burned per year.

No one will stand all the time, nor should you stand all the time, but University of Chester researchers feel that even small adjustments will make a difference.

Exercise cannot do it all

Regular exercise, like running, cycling or swimming, certainly improves fitness and overall health, but even exercising for an hour a day will not offset the negative health aspects of spending over 8 hours a day sitting.

The good news is you can reactivate those “sleeping” enzymes by contracting and relaxing your muscles, and by standing instead of sitting. Regular activity throughout the day, including walking and standing, offers your body protective benefits.

Prolonged sitting is clearly bad for us and some studies suggest that those who sit all day live some months or years less than those who are more active. Most of us are guilty of excess sitting. We sit at work, in the car and at home, moving only to shift from one seat to another.

Conclusions:

• The research evidence is building that simply standing up more and sitting less has positive effects on blood glucose levels, musculoskeletal pain and promotes weight loss
• Even regular exercise does not reverse the adverse effects of excessive sitting
• We need to increase the amount we move each day
• Incidental activity throughout the day is the key

 

Chapter Four – Making a Change in the office

Changes to procedures at work can reduce the amount of time you spend sitting. The physical work environment can be altered with sit-stand or active workstations. These can be combined with organizational and individual changes, to achieve reductions in the sitting time in the workplace, and in prolonged time sitting without changes in position.

Costless Innovations

Some strategies for risk reduction are very simple and they don’t cost any money:

• A great place to start is to have standing meetings.
• Increase movement in the workplace by using reminder alarms to get up and move around every 30 minutes, and complete a few stretches.
• Make a few telephone calls while standing.

Frequent and regular movement is needed to maintain health and well-being. This can be easily achieved by the redesign of tasks at work and through regularly scheduled breaks that allow workers to be active.

Mostly, workers need systems and strategies where they sit less and move or stand more.

Some strategies do have costs involved which are small compared to the health benefits that can be gained by simply standing more. Standing strategies will contribute to improvements in overall health and wellness of office based workers.

Please remember if you have an existing medical condition to discuss any changes you wish to implement in your work environment with your Doctor or allied health professional.

The Importance of Change

It is time to engineer movement back into our lives. The emerging evidence is showing that time spent sitting increases the risk of poor health. New focus and resources are needed in order that employers can better understand the potential hazards of prolonged sitting at work.

Sedentary time now occupies over two-thirds of the working days of office based workers. Due to this, consideration is being given to trying and evaluating initiatives that will facilitate a lessening of workers’ sitting time.

Light intensity activity is beneficial to employees who previously have spent the majority of their working time sitting down. There are various strategies that include standing up while on the phone, or using headsets to allow for movement during phone calls. If meetings run long, they can be changed to standing meetings, or short breaks can be taken, so that the employees can walk or get other easy exercise.

Stand Up Australia Urges Workplace Reform

As previously mentioned, this study provides evidence that businesses should seriously consider sitting work time as a real health issue. Research in the future will be directed to expanding this knowledge base, to confirm the connection between sedentary time at work and poor health outcomes.

This evidence has been used to motivate concerned companies worldwide to change their employees’ sedentary position at work. It has also resulted in many businesses that now offer the most innovative types of standing and treadmill desks to make these changes possible. The companies that design and build this equipment can be found in Europe, North America, Asia and Oceania.

Modern technology can be utilized to measure sedentary activity at work and in the home, as well. There is a new perspective on physical activity and its benefits for overall health. Using accelerometers, researchers can measure physical activity and its effects on the health of workers. Light intensity exercise, as well as high intensity work, can be considered as useful alternatives to sedentary workplace practices.

Innovative Workplace Equipment

There is good news for sedentary workers, since their problems open new doors to opportunity. New products have been developed that allow people to work without sitting. Modern workstations allow office workers to stand and even walk while they work.

Individual entrepreneurs are among the people designing solutions for the sitting crisis. These products may have raised some eyebrows when first introduced but are now considered interesting, dynamic and beneficial. National and international workplaces that utilise these products include Google, Apple, Boeing, Allstate and Chevron.

Standing and Height Adjustable Desks

Office furniture designers have noted the desire for adjustable workstations that allow people to sit or stand while they work. The earlier models have been in production since the 1990’s, and product sales are increasing every year.

Standing and height adjustable desks are the most functional and practical way to increase incidental activity in the workplace. Individuals can easily move between standing and sitting with minimal impact. Options abound in the market and while there is a cost involved in changing to a standing or height adjustable desk the benefits far outweigh the cost.

Height Adjustable Monitor Arms and Platforms

Another option that is available to promote movement in the workplace is height adjustable monitor arms and platforms. These products can be attached to existing traditional desks and just like a standing desk enable users to stand while working at a computer. Great benefit of this option is that it utilises existing furniture making your move to a standing environment more affordable.

Do It Yourself

Jump right in and create your own standing desk. It does not have to be an expensive exercise, just change the way you operate. Many people have gone the do-it-yourself route with standing desk designs posted online and shared freely.

Treadmill Workstations

Treadmill workstations are also now available. Walk while you work…why not! Certainly a niche product they are the full extension of the dynamic active work environment while still enabling users to complete computer based tasks. While not for everyone regular use of a treadmill desk will improve your health and fitness. Most workers who use treadmill desks rate their performance as higher than it used to be. This is in addition to the main reason for the use of these desks, which is to help keep workers healthier.