Sitting down at your desk job

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Home based sole proprietors, and for that matter, anyone with a desk job that requires them to sit at a desk for extended periods of time, have of late been confronted with all manner of information claiming that sitting down is extremely detrimental to one’s health.

Heart disease at one extreme with poor circulation and joint pain at the other are some of the dire consequences that are coming to light from studies that suggest that your comfortable work environment with your ergonomic chair and properly positioned computer are exposing you to all manner of risks. These studies say nothing about those of us who are hunched over a laptop computer at the dining room table.

The problem with most of these studies is that they almost invariably seem to be backed by the makers of expensive stand-up desks who tout their equipment as a panacea for any and all of the genuine health issues that can occur from sitting too long.

For those of us who do not have the resources to spend close to $1,000 or more on a desk that adjusts to accommodate both sitting and standing work positions, there is some good news that has recently been published by researchers of Indiana University that explains that the negative effects of sitting at a desk for too long can be mostly mitigated by simply taking five minutes of each hour to walk about a bit.

Their findings indicted that after just one hour of sitting, blood could pool in the legs and circulation to return it to the heart could be reduced by as much as 50 per cent. A test group of men who walked on a treadmill for five minutes after every hour of sitting did not experience the reduction in circulation.

The study did not compare if this technique of walking after sitting was more or less effective than standing up to work, but more research on the benefits of getting up and moving around briefly might address that comparison. The good news is that this technique is free.