After an exhaustive search, all the Sit or Stand desks (aka Active Desks) I found for sale are, in my opinion, aesthetically boring and cheap looking. None had real wood tops or supported much weight. I spend around 35+ hours at my desk every week at a standard desk stuck in a chair. This leaves my body feeling sore and achy. This is a huge portion of my day, way more than in my car, or sitting on the couch watching TV!
Hure Sit Stand Model with Push Button Height Adjust
One of the options available is a fixed height standing desk. We made one for Lorie in our office to test. She used it for a couple weeks and stopped using it because standing all day was too much of one thing. If she had the option to sit down periodically or at intervals, it would have been great. If you Google standing desks, there are a lot of articles warning you not to get a standing only desk, and this is why. There are also lots of studies heralding the necessity desk accommodates both sitting and standing.
What better reason to invest in a desk that will improve the quality of my life?
Crank Sit Stand Desk with Walnut Top
Recently we built a Sit or Stand desk (aka. Active desk) and I’ve been testing it out for the past month. It’s reduced my pain tremendously and made working much more pleasurable. If you’re like me, you need to get up periodically to stretch, take a break or just to change your position. This desk has solved that issue for me. With the push of a button, or crank of the wheel, you can raise the top to standing height. I simply slide my chair back and stand. It’s liberating leaving the chair! I sometimes use a balance board made by Fluidstance (which looks like a skateboard without the wheels). Standing on the board forces me to balance my body, which constantly changes position. I notice that this activates my muscles, seems to burn some calories, and alleviates my aches.
IndustriaLux Sit Stand Desk with Black Lacquered Top
Please check out the following studies that were done on the benefits of using an active desk;
1) Study participants who used active desks showed a clear mood boost. In one seven-week study of standing desk use, participants reported less fatigue, tension, confusion, and depression, and more vigor, energy, focus, and happiness—and when they went back to their old desks, their overall mood returned to baseline levels.
2) Seven studies of standing desks, totaling 220 participants, found they had very little negative impact on typical work tasks—namely, typing. In one telling study, employees who used a sit-stand workstation for four hours a day during on work week had no significant difference in characters typed per minute or typing errors made when standing.
3) A university study showed that standing raised heart rate levels 10 beats per minute. That adds up to 50 calories an hour, or 750 per work week if you stand 3 hours a day. Over the course of a year, that’s like running 10 marathons. This supports another study showing participants lost weight using a standing desk over a 3 month period.
4) Standing during your workday can increase HDL cholesterol (aka “good” cholestoerol)
We currently have 9 Active desks with more designs in development. You can view them here > Link