Why You Really Shouldn’t Spend a Lot of Money on a Standing Desk
Everyone wants to be healthier and live longer, which can often lead to indulging in trends that promise to make us leaner, healthier, and happier, whether it’s a fancy diet or fancy gym equipment. Sometimes it even works, but in most cases these health trends and products have a more or less neutral effect on our health. For example, standing tables.
Designed to allow you to work at a desk while standing, these desks have been on trend for several years, inspired by research that warned of the many health hazards associated with long hours of sitting on your ass. And it’s not just sitting that makes your desk so dangerous – working at a desk can cause other problems, like carpal tunnel syndrome or good old-fashioned back pain .
So it’s likely that at some point in the last few years you’ve Googled “standing table” and therefore experienced sticker shock because there are some very expensive standing tables out there (we’re looking at you, Herman Miller Nevi ). Stand Desk , the cost of which exceeds $1,000). Good news? While there’s nothing wrong with wanting a standing desk (or an adjustable desk for sitting and standing), their health benefits are exaggerated, so you don’t need one. And you can definitely get by with a very cheap solution if all you want to do is stretch your legs throughout the day.
Few health benefits
It is well known that sitting all day is bad for you – it can even shorten your lifespan. While scientists aren’t entirely sure why this is, you should definitely try to sit less while working all day. But a standing desk won’t help much, because further research has proven what should be obvious: standing is not a form of exercise. Research has shown that you burn about 80 calories an hour when you sit and about 88 when you stand , which is not a big deal. When it comes to offsetting the dangers of sitting all day long, light activity like walking for five minutes every half hour is much more effective .
And standing all day instead can be bad for you – studies have shown that standing for several hours increases the risk of, for example, varicose veins, which in turn is associated with an increased risk of arterial disease.
bottom line? If you are thinking about buying a standing table because you want to be healthier and live longer, you are wasting your money. You’d be better off getting up twice an hour and moving around.
Standing on my own
Let’s be clear: just because a standing desk won’t necessarily improve your health doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have one if you want to. There are many reasons why a standing desk might be a good choice for your office. You may be more comfortable standing due to back pain or other problems, and some people may simply be more comfortable standing while working. And you can combine a standing desk with a treadmill or other stationary machine to work out while you work, turning you into a sort of secondary efficiency god.
But you can get all these benefits without spending hundreds of dollars. The only function of a standing desk is to conveniently elevate your workspace, so you can adapt your existing desk with a converter for less than $100, or purchase an adjustable desk for less than $200 . They will do the same job as more expensive solutions and offer exactly the same health benefits, meaning very little.
Of course, if your style is expensive and the only standing table that matches your office decor theme is $1,000, you’re right. But if you just want to add some flexibility to your work habits, you don’t need to break the bank.