

Sitting more than 6hrs/day increases likelihood of premature death  - yewweitan
http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=665

======
johnyzee
I post this every chance I get: America seems to be a third-world nation when
it comes to office environments. Here in Denmark (and the rest of Scandinavia
seems to be the same) I have never worked in an office without motorized desks
that you can stand at while working if you so desire. This is across scores of
companies from smallish startups to big corporations, and it isn't limited to
IT companies. I have also never seen a cubicle in any company I have worked at
(except one built from cardboard boxes by a visiting American consultant who
was distracted by the open office plan).

I have no idea why the U.S. is so backwards in this area. But I can say with
emphasis that I would never work in a cubicle, and I would need some seriously
good reasons to not get a motorized desk. I just put this in my own office at
home:
[http://www.conset.dk/product/prodone/4105/Serie-501-19-bredd...](http://www.conset.dk/product/prodone/4105/Serie-501-19-bredde-120-cm-100-kg-
Sort)

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jedwhite
I guess 18 hrs a day is kind of bad then :)

The problem for programmers is that you are never so productive as when you
get into a flow state, and can stay "in the zone" for long periods that pass
in what seems like seconds.

So breaking off flow states has a heavy negative impact on how much you can
achieve.

~~~
konad
Go and get a drink every so often

~~~
andrewf
Or keep a pitcher of water on your desk, and you'll have to go to the bathroom
every once in a while.

This is one of the reasons staying hydrated is recommended on long flights -
it forces you to get up and move at some point.

~~~
dagw
But still no matter how much water you drink, you're not going to average more
than a few minutes an hour going to the bathroom (unless you have a medical
condition). That is not going to make a noticeable dent in the 8-10 hours of
sitting you're doing.

~~~
crystalis
But still, no matter how long your snorkel, you're not going to average more
than a few breaths of fresh air per minute. Will that make a noticeable dent
in the 8-10 hours of snorkeling you're doing? :)

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tectonic
I recently "constructed" myself a standing desk out of about 20 reams of cheap
printer paper and it actually works quite well and is easy to adjust. The
monitor is on one stack, the keyboard on another, and the mouse on a third.

Also, I'm unlikely to run out of printing paper anytime soon.

<http://drp.ly/kwP>

~~~
russell_h
Do you have a lot of earthquakes around there?

~~~
Shamiq
Pardon me, but was that a pun?

~~~
spicyj
Not if I'm understanding correctly. Russell is just making fun of the fact
that the setup looks incredible unstable.

~~~
jbrennan
Or his user name being "tectonic".

~~~
tectonic
:)

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hkuo
I don't think it's so much standing versus sitting so much as how much
movement one does throughout the day. A person could be standing in a fixed
position which would be far more unhealthy than a fixed sitting position. I
remember reading a quote from an extremely old man who said the secret was
simple to "keep moving". Movement seems pretty clear to me the most important
activity, since it keeps your cells active and fluids flowing. Any state of
immobility will eventually put strain on whichever body part is taking the
most pressure or work.

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hkuo
According to the study, there are actually people that sit 3 or less hours in
a day? Apologies if I missed a key element in the article, but how is this
possible that out of about 16 hours of waking hours that only 3 are sitting? I
literally cannot see how a complete 13 hours can be spent otherwise.

~~~
carbocation
Surgeons. Interventionalists. Possibly construction workers and other manual
laborers.

~~~
hkuo
Even they have to sit down to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then at
home, what are they doing between the hours of 6pm to 10 or 11pm that they're
not doing some form of sitting with their family? And even at work, the
professions you mention, I have to believe are sitting at the very least half
an hour throughout their work day, not including lunch. So that plus meals is
already one and a half hours minimum, meaning at home at night, every night,
they're spending 1.5 out of about 4.5 hours sitting. And remember this is
every day. So what is a person, after a full work day doing for those 3 non-
sitting hours. And if you say goig to the gym, even gym rats are sitting a
considerable amount of time during workouts. And I didn't even include the
possibility of sitting while driving, though I guess you could give the
possibility they are standing on a bus or train. But really, in all honesty, I
cannot imagine but an incredibly rare number of people with an extreme non-
sitting lifestyle would exist.

~~~
carbocation
How many surgeons that you know are getting home at 6pm? I'm not saying that
they never sit for X hours in a given day, but I'm saying that there will be
plenty of days when they don't. Remember, this is in response to a question
about who (if anyone) might go for a day without sitting 3 hours. There are a
few realistic options-that's the extent of the argument I'm trying to make.

------
Artifex
I do want to buy a good, adjustable standing desk. Any recommendations?

~~~
munchhausen
I use the FREDRIK desk from IKEA. It is adjustable, it is a standing desk, and
does not look like it should fall apart anytime soon - what more could you ask
for?

~~~
warp
I switched to a FREDRIK after the previous HN discussion on standing desks. In
general, I am quite happy with it, but some notes from my experience:

You cannot adjust the height of the shelves without taking most of the desk
apart. The increments are fairly course, so it may be difficult to get the
height right -- I had to dig up the riser which came with my Microsoft Natural
keyboard.

I use it with an IKEA bar stool and often switch between sitting and standing
a few times during the day.

picture: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuno/5053375629/>

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usaar333
I'm confused by their graphs. The horizontal axis is labeled MET-hours/week,
but given that sleeping consumes 0.9 MET-hours; I'm unsure how someone do <
24.5 MET-hours in a week.

~~~
thalur
I'm guessing from the text that they have ignored time spent sleeping (i.e
considered it to be 0 MET-hours)

~~~
usaar333
Much more than that. Almost any waking activity >= 1 MET

------
stretchwithme
When people who have stiff muscles sit for long periods, cortisol levels
increase, as muscles need to work constantly to keep them in position.
Sustained high cortisol levels has a lot of negative impacts on health.

But if flexibility and good circulation are restored to these muscles and the
sheaths around them, the muscles can easily handle keeping a person upright
and cortisol levels are normal.

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ck2
_During the follow-up period, 11,307 men and 7,923 women died._

FROM WHAT ?!

Sheesh, I re-read the article twice and I don't understand what they died
from.

I have been thinking about getting one of those "walking desks". Can they be
used with coding or is it too much of distraction?

------
BvS
Interesting Hacker News Discussion about standing instead of sitting (around 5
month ago): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1311857>

------
known
I disagree.

In economies which are predominantly _Services_
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_sector...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_sector_composition)

the _life expectancy_ is better.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expec...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy#List_by_the_United_Nations_.282005-2010.29)

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mcmc
As I've been slowly recovering from back injury/surgery over the past few
years, I've been unable to sit for long periods of time. In order to be able
to write software at all I've had to construct a laying down desk where I look
up through a glass table at the monitor.

I wonder, does this improve my odds wrt to the article? Or rather, is it that
6+ hours of waking inactivity increases the likelihood of premature death?
(either sitting or laying down)

~~~
aurora72
I guess, laying down is by definiton a kind of waking inactivity, too. So it
will have those adverse effects similar to the sitting with one exception
(obvious): In laying down your back is under much smaller stress.

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sliverstorm
Considering driving a vehicle or taking the bus/train is usually a sitting
activity, to get down to the 3 hours or below mentioned in the article you'd
basically have to have

a) a standing desk

b) a job that doesn't involve sitting

Has anyone proven, by the way, that a standing desk actually solves things?

~~~
FlemishBeeCycle
Most people that I know who work or have worked in the service industry say
that standing around is much more uncomfortable than actively moving about. I
can't find the source at the moment, but I do remember reading an article
essentially stating that humans physically aren't meant to really just "stand
still" for extended periods (hours) - we should be moving about.

~~~
wesley
You don't really have to stand still, you can fidget around. Stand on one leg,
switch to the other. Shake a little to the music, etc.. Switch to sitting from
time to time. If you're hardcore you can even get a treadmill to go with it.

~~~
electromagnetic
Get a bar-stool height chair for your work station and place it slightly too
far away from your desk for sitting, encouraging you to 'perch', which is good
for your posture, but may also allow you to switch more stream-lessly.

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karinqe
Does this mean it would be a good thing to shorten time spent in school? I
hated those 6-7 hours in the classroom, most of it was wasted and I wish that
the next generation doesn't have to go through it too.

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alatkins
Just to add, the authors themselves note that "this is an observational study
and cannot establish cause and effect."

