… so they say. Sitting on your backside all day is as bad for your health as smoking. Wow!
Whilst not wanting to be a monger of doom, and always one for trying to improve my life expectancy, I’ve hacked my IKEA desk and turned it into a standing desk. Been thinking about this for some months now and, having already developed the claw hand, goose neck and hunched back of the habitual Apple Mac abuser, I do not wish to add ‘dying at my desk’ to my list of ailments.
Those expert types say that being slightly mobile all through the day far outweighs the health benefits of having a sedentary job but going to the gym 3 times a week. Somehow that made my gym membership sound like a really poor deal, and that hurts.
The idea isn’t to stand up all day (I’d just get tired legs and develop a standing slouch), so I’ve also exchanged my work chair for a bar stool type arrangement so I can alternate, sometimes sitting at my standing desk(!)
I love a bit of self-experimentation, me, and I’m more excited about the standing desk than is normal for a functional human being. I’ve never smoked, so I can’t give up smoking, and I’m not entirely giving up sitting (that would be ridiculous). But I am aiming to reduce my daily habit of anything up to 12 hours, on a bad day, to more standing and maybe some social sitting at parties and the like – I just scrounge other people’s seats, but I could give it up any time I want to … really!
Notes: Extending the legs on an IKEA desk alone only works if you’re 5′ 2″ or shorter. The yoga mat is there to prevent fatigue (I haven’t yet progressed to a proper anti-fatigue mat – yes there is such a thing!) Cat is optional and doesn’t aid standing, or working for that matter. Here are some other ways to hack an IKEA desk.