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Sitting May Be Bad for Your Heart
- Danihan 9y agoTL;DR - We don't really know. (but here's an observational study that says the more you sit around the higher your troponin levels are, and those are bad, so try to walk around more.)
- sdiupIGPWEfh 9y ago> so try to walk around more Even though we just said it's probably not going to help.
- feelandcoffee 9y agoI hope this study don't revive the trend of standing desks again. Look I know being sedentary will rob me a few years of life, but going full opposite and being stand 9 to 5 it's Dante inferno at work. Probably the best balance will be having a routine with exercise present, and small breaks to stand and walk a little bit at X minutes sitting.
- maxxxxx 9y agoAt home I have a desk I can take up and down. Some days I sit, some days I stand. I think that's the best
- squeaky-clean 9y agoThey're starting to phase in desks at my current job where you can save a few preset heights, and push a button to shift to one. It's pretty cool, though 90% of people with them only sit.
- abawany 9y agoI place this (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90184047/ http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90184047/) on my desk when I want a standing desk and remove it when I am ready to sit down :) . I like Ikea.
- anken 9y agoI place this https://m.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/art/80267566/ https://m.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/art/80267566/ on my desk, you can put more things than your computer and lean on it, it holds well.
- abawany 9y agoThat's a good idea - the Marius table that I use is a bit precarious with its round top.
- sdiupIGPWEfh 9y agoIt's almost as if it's lack of constant (even low-grade) activity that's the problem, rather than whether you're sitting or standing. Perhaps not moving all day is the cause.
- pikchurn 9y agoTreadmill desk?
- sdiupIGPWEfh 9y agoPotentially better than nothing! However, as a single repetitive motion, it might carry its own long-term risks. Maybe one of those giant human mouse-wheel things with variable terrain? Tripping would suck, though.
- xkcd-sucks 9y agoMinority Report style interfaces that require big limb+head movements?
- fb03 9y agoHeh, nice try, but you don't even need a big interface to see how that pans out. You realize how sedentary you are when you have to use a huge multitouch monitor for... half hour. Your arms will be heavy from just pointing and clicking at the screen in front of you. This situation is very sad and I'm also looking for alternatives. Right now what I'm doing is just taking a 5 min break every hour at work and walk to some random part of the complex pretending I'm delivering something or running some errand, just to get me a lil walk and stand time. While they allow me to do that just fine, I know I am also hurting my productivity quite badly because you're never in that kind of flow state where hours pass like minutes. I want: - Good productivity. Good time alloted to 'flow' - Not fuck my health in the long term too badly. Let's share ideas!
- Nimitz14 9y agoI think it's fine to have an occasional binge of any kind. So you once every couple weeks spend a day or two just sitting intensley focussed on something. What matters is your habits for most of the time, not literally all of it (in other words as long as ~80%+ of your days you do take regular breaks it's fine).
- kruhft 9y agoSomething a bit more like this every morning at work? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCfW6HFP5cI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCfW6HFP5cI
- jdc0589 9y agorevive the trend? its still in full force so far as I can tell. One of our offices just moved to a new building and got (small) motorized standing desks for everyone. I thought I would hate it, but honestly having the option is nice. Plus, its a lot easier to look at something with a coworker standing for some reason. Sadly I'm almost never in that office, I kind of wish I had it all the time.
- manmal 9y ago> Plus, its a lot easier to look at something with a coworker standing for some reason. So true. I think this is because legs are not in the other person‘s way vs sitting.
- kaybe 9y agoI like the option of just changing the chair height and/or the desk height every few hours and stay seated. That alone mixes up my posture quite a bit.
- solipsism 9y agoWhat do you mean by "Dante inferno"? Are you saying it's torture? I stand my entire work day and I'm not going back. But no one is forcing anyone to stand all the time. Cardiovascular exercise is torture for me. But that has no bearing on the utility of it.
- ravenstine 9y agoWhat's wrong with a trend in standing desks? Nobody is forcing you to use one.
- newfoundglory 9y agoThere probably are some employers that mandate sending desks.
- foepys 9y agoIf there are, do they supply high quality shoes? Standing for so long in bad shoes might result in pain, too. I'm a bit of a pessimist in that regard so I could see an employer doing this to save money. A good office chair ranges from $600 to $2000 but you can also can go as high as you want.
- newfoundglory 9y agoit probably depends how many other job options their employees have.
- sixothree 9y agoI got a VersaDesk because of some pain issues I was having (which have since been resolved). I would absolutely not want to be standing for 10 hours a day. But it is nice to be able to stand up for my usual 3-5 hours per day.
- Kenji 9y agoI had to stand for 9 hours every day at one job. It was a horrible experience. A lot of foot pain and sore foot arches.
- oh_sigh 9y agoThey have adjustable sit-stand desks these days.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- haukilup 9y agoWhat's bad about the trend - don't offices typically give you a choice of which you'd prefer? Previous workplaces I've been at had the option of an Ikea adjustable height desk for people who would occasionally switch between the two.
- eropple 9y agoI've had one of those and it was okay, but I much prefer my home setup - a standing-height desk and a draft-height chair. Nothing needs to move to switch, and so I switch regularly throughout the day.
- cranjice 9y agoWhat a good idea! I have a powered sit/stand desk but tend to only stand during meetings, which luckily (well, unlucky in this context) aren't very often. Going to give a drafting chair a try.
- melling 9y agoMaybe we can figure out what we need to do, at a minimum, to alleviate the problem. 20 push-ups, 20 squats, etc every couple hours? “But even slightly elevated troponin levels, lower than those involved in heart attacks, are worrisome if they persist” If we can measure the right things, we can “treat it” ——- HN-TIME:For those tracking, this story was posted 3 times in two days. 12pm EST on a Friday got over 50 upvotes in a hour. Lunchtime EST.
- simplify 9y agoPersonally I love standing desks. I find myself naturally walk around more often, especially when I'm in deep thought. This rarely happens when I'm sitting, as it feels much harder to get up. But it's good to have a sitting option too so you don't have to stand all day.
- brightball 9y agoStanding desk plus an anti fatigue mat was mostly life changing for me. The amount of energy that I have at the end of the day is noticeably different but it does take some getting used to. Different strokes for different folks though. I really miss it when I don’t have it.
- JeremyNT 9y agoI think the real solution here is diversity. I don't know that 9-5 standing was ever seriously advocated as a preferable alternative to sitting; clearly there are issues with that too. I mix things up at work personally; about a third of the day standing, a third sitting in a chair, a third sitting on a yoga ball. At this point it seems like you should just hedge and try to about doing any single thing without moving for too long.
- tabeth 9y agoI dunno if sitting is bad or not -- but ever since I got a fitted desk and put a Deskcycle under it I've felt super great. It's a bit awkward always being a little bit sweaty though (I put in ~50 miles a day). https://deskcycle.com/ https://deskcycle.com/
- russdill 9y agoDoes it have inertia as well as resistance? I bought one several years ago that had absolutely no inertia and it was just horrible to use.
- starpilot 9y agoFrom the main page: > The precision machined flywheel silently spins at 14 times your pedal speed. The high inertia of the flywheel helps keep the pedals moving at a smooth pace, sort of like a mini spin bike.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- milofeynman 9y agoThat picture at the top is such a hilariously bad photoshop. I can't imagine anyone using this with a rolly chair on a wooden floor. The scratches!
- derda 9y agoFYI: There are special rolls for hardwood flooring, that dont scratch the floor.
- rubicon33 9y agoPrice is good. Thanks for sharing, I just ordered one.
- wishinghand 9y agoWhat's a fitted desk?
- gxs 9y agoWent to an orthopedic doc for an achy leg/back/knee. Gave me the usual prescription: strengthen some core muscles, physical therapy, anti inflammatory meds for a couple weeks, and should be good to go. Also, however, he prescribed that I read the book Deskbound, by Kelly Starrett. Reading that book will definitely give you an incentive to not sit for long periods of time.
- austinjp 9y agoWeasel words perhaps, but Kelly Starrett really divides physical therapist communities. Some love him, some hate him. Personally I think he's often "right for the wrong reasons". But if his approach gets you feeling better, that's what's important. Ditto workouts for "core muscles".
- gxs 9y agoInteresting, thanks for the info I’ll check it out.
- irremediable 9y agoIs there any readable book that's "right for the right reasons"? I'm interested in learning more.
- weiland 9y agoIt's 2017 and people still haven't figured out that humans weren't meant to do repetitive things for 8 hours a day. Sitting is not bad for your heart. Sitting for 8 hours a day is bad for your heart. How many times does this need to be said?
- bluGill 9y agoUnfortunately while there is evidence that sitting all day is bad, we don't know if/what alternatives are good. Is standing better, or do you need to move? Maybe it is staring at something close (monitor, papers...) and sitting is only bad as a proxy (I know of no study that can actually say that hypothesis is wrong even though I just made it up). Modern life currently requires a lot of people to spend a lot of time at computers, so we need to know how to be healthy while at computers. I like having a motorized desk, but I don't think I could actually stand all day long, (other than the same breaks someone sitting all day would take). I tried a treadmill desk a time or two, but I don't have the option of using it daily.
- nxsynonym 9y agoI think the only real alternative is to get rid of the 8+ hour work day. Correct me if there is evidence to the contrary, but I don't think humans were designed to sit or stand in one position for extended periods of time, habitually. Unfortunately I don't see the 8 hour work day going away any time soon, so imo the best option is to alternate sitting/standing and take as many walking around breaks as possible.
- have_faith 9y agoI don't mind the work day so much, it's the work week that bothers me most. I would rather have a standard 4 day work week.
- smegger001 9y agoI could get behind that, even if I worked a 40 hour week still. Four 10 hour shift would not be bad.
- sliverstorm 9y agoHave you considered a career in healthcare, e.g. nursing or EMT?
- keenerd 9y ago
- lerie82 9y agoDo you think the author was sitting down when he typed this?
- tormeh 9y agoWhen I started my fisærst and current job I got back pains after 2 months. I tried walking home every day, which helped, but that's not always possible in winter. What really helped was working out with weight exercises during lunch. No pain since then.
- yakt 9y agoi had back pain for 2 years... which sows up 2 to 4 times a month, i tried many techniques, but with no great result. But this one technique where you just lie down on the floor upside down fully flat for 20 mins... my back pain just disappeared and never came back for last 6 months...
- freehunter 9y ago>fisærst ?
- sixdimensional 9y agoTaking a bigger picture view, this makes me wonder.. we took so much effort to move from the industrial age, where hands on work, always active all day work took its toll on workers, to the service or knowledge age, where we sit all day and that takes its toll. Surely the answer lies somewhere in-between, that we must rest, and we must move, and the amount of each must be relative to each person and activity. I would prefer to see studies not just trying to prove things bad (we have enough of those), but focuses on what can be proven to be a positive, for example, the optimal mixture of activity and rest for different people and situations. For example, in addition to "sitting may be bad for your heart" (while necessary and important), I would like to see more of the studies that say "for age group <Y>, occupation <Z>, walking for <N> interval followed by resting for <M> interval increased <X> or <Y> positive benefits". Since we automated a lot of manual labor, maybe the next big thing is automating sitting all day so we can get up and walk around.
- _carl_jung 9y agoYou might like Spark by John Ratey. That book dives into a bunch of the studies related to this kind of book and got me off my ass and into the gym.
- CM30 9y agoStick the computer on an exercise bike, set it up so its powered by a dynamo and get the programming, marketing and sales teams to cycle while working. Okay, that's not a good idea, but it's one I can see a executive coming up with to 'promote a healthy lifestyle' at one of those newfangled offices Apple and Google and the likes have.
- skummetmaelk 9y agoEnforce mandatory installation of a processor throttling program, tied to an exercise bike, on all software developer machines. This should prevent them from slacking off when compiling!
- tintor 9y agoApple and Google already have walking treadmill desks, which serves the same purpose.
- leephillips 9y agoSeems closely connected with something I happened to submit recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15839654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15839654
- S_A_P 9y agoThis article comes as I worked sitting down for 16 hours yesterday to hit a code deadline. I think Im going to get a standing desk ASAP...
- amatecha 9y agoYeh, start bugging your employer (assuming you work for one) to get those awesome adjustable desks that can raise/lower to different heights. OK, they are a bit pricy, but if enough people speak up about it that should make things happen. Hopefully :)
- S_A_P 9y agoI’m a independent contractor and work from home. So yeah, my employer is aware :) I definitely have this high on my list especially since I get the money spent right back in tax relief.
- glenstein 9y agoEvery time an article about the (very important!) dangers of sitting makes the rounds, it always brings in people with a bad case of switcheroo fever, who come in and say something to the effect of "well actually, standing can cause injuries too!" But that's never followed up with any clear conclusions about the relative dangers of standing vs. sitting. The conversation is left with a dangling implication that maybe standing is just as bad as sitting. Or worse, we're left with a vague, open ended exhortation about how the body is really complicated. This always annoys the heck out of me. At a bare minimum, we should at least be able to come away from these articles with the conclusion that we shouldn't sit for substantial periods, and that we definitely should throw ourselves into some other alternative, whatever it's complications are. The risk of injuries from standing should be mitigated however they have to be mitigated, but it we shouldn't let that complication muddy the waters on the more fundamental point about sedentary behavior still being bad even if the alternatives have problems too.
- nickjj 9y agoI would say during the 16 hours I'm awake, it's mixed between standing with a little bit of movement (75%), walking / running (10%) and sitting (15%). This has been going on for about 2 years. You can put together a custom standing desk for about $50 nowadays and a $35ish chair is all you need to comfortably sit in an ergonomic way with your standing desk when you want to take a break (no complicated adjustable desk needed, just a standard 29" comfortable stool with a back). I really like this set up and highly recommend it.
- artur_makly 9y agoi noticed in the past 3 years that my ability to stand still > 1hr becomes very very challenging. not sure if this is my age..but it truly was alarming. so now i take it day by day and push myself a few min more each morning ( when my hormones are the highest ) to stand more. i mix it up during the day when i can..and use a fitball for sitting. Let's all do more standing, drinking water, yoga, and eat more non-processed foods in 2018!!
- bb88 9y agoWe need recess at work.
- anonytrary 9y agoIs it that sitting is bad, or that not walking is bad? Is this clickbait?
- horsecaptin 9y ago"Not surprisingly, those men and women rarely exercised." Perhaps a more controlled study is needed.