Sit and sin
A recent study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine has found that nearly 4 per cent of all deaths worldwide or about 433,000 annually take place because people spend more than three hours daily sitting. The study, conducted across 54 countries, and using data from 2002 to 2011, infuses fresh panic into the "sitting is the new smoking" mantra that's been around for some years.
Well, what can I say? I panicked. More than three hours? Heck, I spend more than double that time sitting down, glued to my desk and the computer screen that sits atop. I'm betting you do the same. If the study is to be believed, I (and probably you) could soon end up among that dreaded 4 per cent demographic.
Obviously, drastic measures were called for. It was high time I ended the unholy relationship between my butt and my chair. Since working for less than three hours a day was not an option (if only!), and neither did a career switch to manual labour look all that attractive, I went to the internet and checked out some standing desks. These contraptions, one had been told, allowed you to work at your desk job while standing up. It seemed like the best way of kicking the chair habit and avoiding hypertension, Type-2 diabetes, obesity and all killer diseases that were apparently winging my way.
Standing desks are height adjustable. In fact, most are sit-to-stand affairs, so you have the option of sitting down as well — an option you might want to exercise when you start suffering from withdrawal symptoms. The craving for the snug embrace of a comfortable chair can be as powerful as the craving for potato chips.
For the fitness radical, there are treadmill desks too. So you can sweat it out at work both literally and figuratively. In fact, if you're wedded to your Fitbit and like to check your step count compulsively, a treadmill desk could be just the thing for you. After walking your way through spreadsheets or Facebook timelines or whatever, you can proudly declare that you worked — not for eight hours — but for 8 kilometres. Or 10,000 steps, which, even a non-Fitbit person like me knows is what we should be aiming for every single day.
Standing desks (treadmill desks are a variation on the theme) are not a new idea, of course. Authors Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Lewis Carroll were among those who used standing desks. Winston Churchill had one too. Writer Amitav Ghosh also uses a standing desk.
So should we all rise up in revolt against 'chairdom' and request the HR to provide us with standing desks at the workplace? (In the enabled first world environs of a Google or a Facebook, these desks are part of employee wellness programmes.) Er, not so fast. It appears that even standing desks aren't an unmixed blessing. Studies indicate that they bring their own health risks. Standing for long periods can compress the spine and lead to lower back problems. It can also increase your risk for varicose veins and deep vein thrombosis. Blood pooling near the feet may also occur, leading to swollen ankles. And, of course, women can forget about ever wearing high heels to work! Truth is, there are no easy ways of ditching the sedentary lifestyle our jobs impose on us. What's clear is that whether one works standing up or sitting down, one shouldn't get rooted to the spot. One needs to move around a bit to get the circulation going. So it's pointless to demonise the chair. But let's keep the scary statistics coming at least they help us to remember to get our butts out of the chair every so often. And maybe, even jolt us into starting an exercise regimen to offset the ill effects of leading deskbound lives.