Bach Seat

There is a growing body of that evidence that your desk is killing you. Research suggests that sedentary office workers and other inactive people are at a relatively high risk of dying early. MIT‘s Technology Review reports that sedentary people have higher levels of biomarkers linked to cardiovascular disease, including insulin, glucose, and triglycerides.

Research in animals has shown that levels of an enzyme that is responsible for breaking down fat plunge when they are forced to be inactive. The article says that intensive exercise doesn’t affect the fat-metabolizing enzyme. So even daily workouts won’t necessarily protect people who spend eight hours a day sitting at a desk.

Few firms have tried to figure out ways to make office work less sedentary. “For most people with indoor office jobs or doing lot of driving, work is really the biggest chunk of sedentary time during the day,” Neville Owen, professor of health behavior at the University of Queensland, Australia told Technology Review. The average American spends about 10 hours a day sitting, and the problem is getting worse.

Choose between sitting at your desk and standing during the day

The Professor’s team is beginning a clinical study in which office workers are given adjustable desks. They let the workers choose between sitting and standing throughout the day. These desks are growing in popularity. However, they cost about $1,000 each, employers want to know if they really work.

TR reports that participants in the study will wear meters. The meters will measure their activity levels to find out if the expensive desks reduce sitting time. The researchers will also measure the participants’ markers of cardiovascular disease. They will see if the levels of glucose, insulin, and triglycerides are impacted by the changes in their habits. “We will also look at participants’ perception of their own energy levels,” says Professor Owens.

Change workplace culture

Another approach to the problem being studied is to make it more acceptable to walk around while at work. According to the article, Ken Smith, a researcher at the Stanford Center on Longevity is working on a pilot project at a call center in California. “We want to explore cultural changes in the workplace that make it OK to stand in a highly sedentary environment like a call center, where it might be frowned on to walk around, or not even possible,” he says. “Part of the study will be to look at the impact on productivity.”

Targeting inactivity on the job may prove easier to carry out than getting people to exercise according to the article. “A lot of the workplace wellness is around discretionary exercising,” says Professor Owen. “… Workplace sitting is more integral, more structural. It largely has to do with workplace design and giving options for adjusting sitting and standing.”

Meanwhile, the most common advice from physiologists is to get up as much as possible: go get a drink, do a quick stretch, or walk over to see a colleague rather than sending an e-mail.

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I wrote about this issue here. Other research has shown that physical activity and exercise can benefit employers because it

• Improves attention, focus, memory, and reading retention
• Improves brain function making it ready to learn and absorb new information
• Increases executive function at work
• Reduces stress and anxiety

Related articles

• The Art of Work: Avoiding the Pitfalls of a Sedentary Job (marksdailyapple.com)
• The Growing Health Hazard of Stress in the Workplace (bodandbeyond.com)

What do you think?

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.