6 ms·
Sitting more than 6hrs/day increases likelihood of premature death
- jedwhite 16y agoI guess 18 hrs a day is kind of bad then :) The problem for programmers is that you are never so productive as when you get into a flow state, and can stay "in the zone" for long periods that pass in what seems like seconds. So breaking off flow states has a heavy negative impact on how much you can achieve.
- erikstarck 16y agoChanging to a standing position doesn't have to break you out of the flow.
- radu_floricica 16y agoThere are very few things as distracting as a complete change of posture, especially if it's forced/programmed. I can understand that you can get up and pace around while thinking about a problem, but unfortunately daily work has too few interesting problems and too much continuous moderately challenging tasks.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- konad 16y agoGo and get a drink every so often
- andrewf 16y agoOr keep a pitcher of water on your desk, and you'll have to go to the bathroom every once in a while. This is one of the reasons staying hydrated is recommended on long flights - it forces you to get up and move at some point.
- dagw 16y agoBut still no matter how much water you drink, you're not going to average more than a few minutes an hour going to the bathroom (unless you have a medical condition). That is not going to make a noticeable dent in the 8-10 hours of sitting you're doing.
- crystalis 16y agoBut still, no matter how long your snorkel, you're not going to average more than a few breaths of fresh air per minute. Will that make a noticeable dent in the 8-10 hours of snorkeling you're doing? :)
- cdr 16y agoBreaks are good, but they're not going to significantly reduce the time you spend sitting.
- tectonic 16y agoI recently "constructed" myself a standing desk out of about 20 reams of cheap printer paper and it actually works quite well and is easy to adjust. The monitor is on one stack, the keyboard on another, and the mouse on a third. Also, I'm unlikely to run out of printing paper anytime soon. http://drp.ly/kwP http://drp.ly/kwP
- russell_h 16y agoDo you have a lot of earthquakes around there?
- Artifex 16y agoI do want to buy a good, adjustable standing desk. Any recommendations?
- yewweitan 16y agoFWIW, I personally got myself a basic ELFA set http://www.containerstore.com/shop/elfa/bestSellingSolutions/officeSpaces?productId=10023252&N=77773 http://www.containerstore.com/shop/elfa/bestSellingSolutions... . Cost me $350 down here in australia with a simple two desk setup. Also had to go through the hassle of getting a handyman to set it up, and then a comfy bar stool for switching between sitting and standing. Closer to $500, and not as much surface area as a regular desk, but great Swedish quality and definitely a relief for my back.
- vishaldpatel 16y agoAn ironing board + 2 dumbbells under the laptop.
- munchhausen 16y agoI use the FREDRIK desk from IKEA. It is adjustable, it is a standing desk, and does not look like it should fall apart anytime soon - what more could you ask for?
- warp 16y agoI switched to a FREDRIK after the previous HN discussion on standing desks. In general, I am quite happy with it, but some notes from my experience: You cannot adjust the height of the shelves without taking most of the desk apart. The increments are fairly course, so it may be difficult to get the height right -- I had to dig up the riser which came with my Microsoft Natural keyboard. I use it with an IKEA bar stool and often switch between sitting and standing a few times during the day. picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuno/5053375629/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuno/5053375629/
- goodside 16y agoI will second this. Make sure you're looking at the $150 Fredrik "Computer work station", not the $100 Fredrik "Desk". The Fredrik has extremely solid steel support. I've used it for over a year and a half, most of that time as a standing desk, and have disassembled and reassembled it at least a half-dozen times (for height-adjustment of the desk or shelves or for moving). It holds the weight of a 24" iMac, a second display, a stereo receiver, and two shelf-lengths of books with no bending or bowing whatsoever. I even have a habit of leaning on it when I'm not typing, and it's held up to it perfectly.
- stretchwithme 16y agoWhen people who have stiff muscles sit for long periods, cortisol levels increase, as muscles need to work constantly to keep them in position. Sustained high cortisol levels has a lot of negative impacts on health. But if flexibility and good circulation are restored to these muscles and the sheaths around them, the muscles can easily handle keeping a person upright and cortisol levels are normal.
- sliverstorm 16y agoConsidering driving a vehicle or taking the bus/train is usually a sitting activity, to get down to the 3 hours or below mentioned in the article you'd basically have to have a) a standing desk b) a job that doesn't involve sitting Has anyone proven, by the way, that a standing desk actually solves things?
- FlemishBeeCycle 16y agoMost people that I know who work or have worked in the service industry say that standing around is much more uncomfortable than actively moving about. I can't find the source at the moment, but I do remember reading an article essentially stating that humans physically aren't meant to really just "stand still" for extended periods (hours) - we should be moving about.
- die_sekte 16y agoI think the soviets forced prisoners to stand as a form of torture. Standing still apparently literally destroys your legs after some time.
- sliverstorm 16y agoi.e. varicose veins. It's actually kind of cool how it works. Your legs have one-way valves in the blood vessels. Normally, the flexing muscles help pump the blood back up the leg by pinching the vessels. When you stand still, there is no flexing and no pumping, and the blood pools in your legs.
- wesley 16y agoYou don't really have to stand still, you can fidget around. Stand on one leg, switch to the other. Shake a little to the music, etc.. Switch to sitting from time to time. If you're hardcore you can even get a treadmill to go with it.
- peterwwillis 16y ago
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- usaar333 16y agoI'm confused by their graphs. The horizontal axis is labeled MET-hours/week, but given that sleeping consumes 0.9 MET-hours; I'm unsure how someone do < 24.5 MET-hours in a week.
- BvS 16y agoInteresting Hacker News Discussion about standing instead of sitting (around 5 month ago): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1311857 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1311857
- mcmc 16y agoAs I've been slowly recovering from back injury/surgery over the past few years, I've been unable to sit for long periods of time. In order to be able to write software at all I've had to construct a laying down desk where I look up through a glass table at the monitor. I wonder, does this improve my odds wrt to the article? Or rather, is it that 6+ hours of waking inactivity increases the likelihood of premature death? (either sitting or laying down)
- aurora72 16y agoI guess, laying down is by definiton a kind of waking inactivity, too. So it will have those adverse effects similar to the sitting with one exception (obvious): In laying down your back is under much smaller stress.
- johnyzee 16y agoI post this every chance I get: America seems to be a third-world nation when it comes to office environments. Here in Denmark (and the rest of Scandinavia seems to be the same) I have never worked in an office without motorized desks that you can stand at while working if you so desire. This is across scores of companies from smallish startups to big corporations, and it isn't limited to IT companies. I have also never seen a cubicle in any company I have worked at (except one built from cardboard boxes by a visiting American consultant who was distracted by the open office plan). I have no idea why the U.S. is so backwards in this area. But I can say with emphasis that I would never work in a cubicle, and I would need some seriously good reasons to not get a motorized desk. I just put this in my own office at home: http://www.conset.dk/product/prodone/4105/Serie-501-19-bredde-120-cm-100-kg-Sort http://www.conset.dk/product/prodone/4105/Serie-501-19-bredd...
- hkuo 16y agoAccording to the study, there are actually people that sit 3 or less hours in a day? Apologies if I missed a key element in the article, but how is this possible that out of about 16 hours of waking hours that only 3 are sitting? I literally cannot see how a complete 13 hours can be spent otherwise.
- carbocation 16y agoSurgeons. Interventionalists. Possibly construction workers and other manual laborers.
- hkuo 16y agoEven they have to sit down to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then at home, what are they doing between the hours of 6pm to 10 or 11pm that they're not doing some form of sitting with their family? And even at work, the professions you mention, I have to believe are sitting at the very least half an hour throughout their work day, not including lunch. So that plus meals is already one and a half hours minimum, meaning at home at night, every night, they're spending 1.5 out of about 4.5 hours sitting. And remember this is every day. So what is a person, after a full work day doing for those 3 non-sitting hours. And if you say goig to the gym, even gym rats are sitting a considerable amount of time during workouts. And I didn't even include the possibility of sitting while driving, though I guess you could give the possibility they are standing on a bus or train. But really, in all honesty, I cannot imagine but an incredibly rare number of people with an extreme non-sitting lifestyle would exist.
- Retric 16y agoConstruction workers often eat standing up. But time spent driving is far harder to avoid.
- carbocation 16y agoHow many surgeons that you know are getting home at 6pm? I'm not saying that they never sit for X hours in a given day, but I'm saying that there will be plenty of days when they don't. Remember, this is in response to a question about who (if anyone) might go for a day without sitting 3 hours. There are a few realistic options-that's the extent of the argument I'm trying to make.
- hkuo 16y agoI don't think it's so much standing versus sitting so much as how much movement one does throughout the day. A person could be standing in a fixed position which would be far more unhealthy than a fixed sitting position. I remember reading a quote from an extremely old man who said the secret was simple to "keep moving". Movement seems pretty clear to me the most important activity, since it keeps your cells active and fluids flowing. Any state of immobility will eventually put strain on whichever body part is taking the most pressure or work.
- ck2 16y agoDuring the follow-up period, 11,307 men and 7,923 women died. FROM WHAT ?! Sheesh, I re-read the article twice and I don't understand what they died from. I have been thinking about getting one of those "walking desks". Can they be used with coding or is it too much of distraction?
- known 16y agoI disagree. In economies which are predominantly Services http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_sector_composition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_sector... the life expectancy is better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy#List_by_the_United_Nations_.282005-2010.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expec...
- alatkins 16y agoJust to add, the authors themselves note that "this is an observational study and cannot establish cause and effect."
- karinqe 16y agoDoes this mean it would be a good thing to shorten time spent in school? I hated those 6-7 hours in the classroom, most of it was wasted and I wish that the next generation doesn't have to go through it too.