Standing While I Work

So for the past few months I’ve been experimenting with standing while I work.  Yes, I feel like I bit of an odd-ball, but then again I also feel good.  Sitting all day drains me and I feel really lethargic because of it.  Not to mention, standing while working seems to keep the blood flowing better and I swear I am more productive and have  better ideas when I do so.

Granted, I didn’t come up with this out of thin air.  I’d heard rumblings of people standing at their computers for a while now.  Famous tech-blogger, Gina Trapani, was the one I heard talk about it first.  She wrote about it on Lifehacker and since then they’ve had a number of posts regarding it.  For instance: How Sitting All Day Is Damaging Your Body and How You Can Counteract It.  Gina recently blogged how she’d reached the One Year point of standing at her desk.

Converting to standing isn’t the easiest thing in the world.  Obviously most offices aren’t equipped for it and most people think you’re crazy (probably because it’s not “what everyone else does”).  But, you need to find boxes or books or something to raise your keyboard, mouse, and monitors.  Otherwise, there’s no point in standing if you’re going to kill your neck and back trying to hunch over or look down.  Also, you’ll either want to invest in a mat to stand on like Gina did, or just take the easy route like I did and just throw on some more comfortable shoes (eg. Crocs).  Also, I only stand a few hours at a time, otherwise it’s hard on the back.  From what I’ve read, standing all day is just as bad as sitting all day, so it’s good to mix it up.

Finally, to further motivate myself, I printed out this 5-page infographic and have it posted at work.  It’s nice to point to when people look at me funny and ask why I’m standing too!  Or, they may be looking at me funny because, in order to stand, I need to jury rig my desk with an Amazon box: