Standing desks are a sham — and I love mine
Are sit-stand desks really worth it? It depends.
My desk sort of runs my life. It’s where I write, edit photos and videos, find inspiration, fill out my budget and sit in on Zoom meetings of varying degrees of usefulness. And as I’m not much of a coffee shop worker, my desk at home is where I’m most productive.
When I moved out of my parents’ place and into my current apartment, I needed a new desk after my little brother inherited my old one. The idea of being able to stand while I worked was appealing, and since I hold my at-home workspace so dear, I splurged on a rather expensive sit-stand desk.
So far, I’ve been enjoying the ability to be on my feet as I sift through emails and type away. But before I put in my credit card information and hit “purchase,” I did some digging on what sit-stand desks actually do for you. Here’s what I found.
The research is mixed.
It’s hard to say when exactly standing desks first started to be a thing, as even the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Winston Churchill used them back then. Now, it’s a symbol of “hip” tech company workplaces and sales have boomed in recent years.
But the actual science behind the benefits of using standing desks is pretty weak. One study in Latvia found that employees were 10% more productive while working at standing desks, but their sample size was only seven participants. Another study found that standing while working burned more calories an hour — by a whopping eight calories.
It’s also no secret that sitting for too long is linked with health problems like obesity, cardiovascular disease and muscle atrophy, and sit-stand desks might help you squeeze in some standing time during a workday, as well as help improve shoulder and back pain.
That’s great and all, but you can also just … get up and take a walk. Go outside and touch some grass. Pace around your home like I do. You need a break anyways, which is why people use the Pomodoro method — 25 minutes of focused working followed by a 5-minute rest.
Another study found that standing too much at work may actually be linked to an increased risk of heart disease, so while it’s recommended to have a mixture of sitting and standing throughout your workday, that can be helped by a walk during a lunch break.
But I stand by my desk.
I do a lot of my thinking while I’m standing or strolling, which means that I tend to pace around while I’m working. And after I’m done pacing, sometimes it’s just nice to get right back to what I was doing at my desk.
There’s definitely a psychological element as to why people might feel the same way as I do. For me, I sometimes simply can’t be pulled away from what I’m working on, which would kill my momentum. So instead of taking a walk, I just set my desk to “rise” mode and get a little boost.
But I have a confession to make — I wrote most of this piece sitting down. I know, I know, blasphemous. Again though, it’s not about standing all the time to work; it’s about having the option to do so.
Sitting down is great and I do it most of the time when I’m working, but when I want to feel like Tony Stark, I just hit one button and my whole command center rises, the sweet sound of gears whirring as my desk ascends.
You should also know that I set my work station to “rise” maybe only once or twice a day on average, though. Standing gets old pretty quickly.
The bottom line is simple: if you like standing while you work sometimes, then sure, get a standing desk. If not, save your money for an elite office chair, or your Roth IRA.
Is this all just me coping with the fact that I dropped $800 on a sit-stand desk that was not completely necessary? Maybe. But as I type this at my gorgeous American-made walnut laminate table top, I stand with no regrets.
