TAKING A STAND
The key to a healthier future could be as simple as being up standing, writes Remy Rippon.
fallen in my lap. My embarrassingly low stand goal lit up the iPhone screen: in the previous eight hours I had hit the suggested one minute-per-hour stand target, just twice. That is to say, while working from home hunched over my laptop, I had (unknowingly) barely left my desk.
Turns out, I’m not alone on my perch. A chorus of experts believe sitting is the new smoking, and the hours we clock seated every day is having a worrying effect on our physical and mental health. A greater risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and depression are all proven associates of being stationed for too long, while the immediate drawbacks include tighter joints and muscles (cue creaky knees), and fluid retention.
So how much is too much? “Over and above eight hours per day is in the higher range,” says University of Queensland associate professor and leading researcher in the field, Genevieve Healy. “And if you’re getting to 11 or 12 hours, that’s where we start to see those really strong [health] associations.” But therein lies the catch: the modern 10-hour workday (and a global pandemic that herded us indoors) have made marathon sitsessions the norm. “The sudden transition to working from home last year resulted in some very ordinary home set-ups for some workers, and also an increased amount of sitting time,” says senior physiotherapist Alex Nicholson, who saw an uptick in patients suffering neck and lower back pain from hours spent desk-bound.
The good news is that we can offset long-haul sitting. A game-changing study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine last year, found that up to 40 minutes of moderate to rigorous exercise daily was enough to bring the mortality risk of those sitting for up to 10 hours per day, back into line with those with relatively low sitting times. That can be as simple as factoring in a jog, a hit of tennis, or raising a sweat at the gym.
Other sit-busters: the humble standing desk. “When you stand up, your muscles need to fight gravity and so those big postural muscles in your legs and your back are working three times as hard as when you’re sitting down, so just that act of getting up does make a difference,” says Healy. Walking is better still. Take
THE INFORMATION HAD
a leaf from the Silicon Valley set and factor walk-and-talk meetings into your day; aside from promoting movement, a Stanford University study found they can also boost creativity and remove distractions.
As a benchmark, aim to move every 30 minutes. “It can literally be as simple as a stand-and-stretch break,” says Healy. “Or when colleagues come to your desk, stand up to greet them.” Standing and a bit of old-fashioned kindness, now that’s something we can get behind.
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