The truth is that we spend more time sitting than ever before. However, as you probably already know, our bodies weren’t made to be sitting the entire day. And this is one of the reasons why the debate about standing vs sitting at work is so present these days.
While you may have already heard that sitting in the same position can dramatically affect your overall health, is it as bad as you may think? Or is it even worse?
In order to discover, we decided to analyze the effects of standing vs sitting at work in terms of your health:
Contents
- 1 #1: When Standing You Reduce The Risk Of Obesity And Weight Gain:
- 2 #2: How Standing Affects The Risk Of Heart Disease:
- 3 #3: Standing Can Help Lower The Risk Of Metabolic Diseases:
- 4 #4: Sitting Can Lead To A Premature Death:
- 5 #5: Standing Can Help Preventing Cancer:
- 6 #6: Standing Can Help You With Your Back Pain:
#1: When Standing You Reduce The Risk Of Obesity And Weight Gain:
When you need to spend a lot of time sitting, it’s natural that you start gaining weight and that you can turn obese.
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#2: How Standing Affects The Risk Of Heart Disease:
One of the main health concerns all around the world is related to heart diseases. So, it’s normal that we want to compare the effects of standing vs sitting at work.
According to a study made in Australia, when you stand you are increasing your “good” HDL cholesterol level and decreasing your “bad” LDL cholesterol level.
Another metric that you should look at is your blood sugar level. According to the same study, you will experience a decrease of about 2% of your blood sugar level when you stand instead of sit.
#3: Standing Can Help Lower The Risk Of Metabolic Diseases:
Metabolic diseases such as diabetes are a huge world problem. And while standing instead of sitting at work may not be the only solution for the problem, it can surely help.
According to the American Diabetes Association, even if you decide to sit but if you take regular intervals, you can reduce your blood sugar levels by 34%.
#4: Sitting Can Lead To A Premature Death:
While we already saw the bad effects sitting instead of standing can have on your heart and that it can lead to diabetes, according to a study, it can actually reduce your life expectancy.
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#5: Standing Can Help Preventing Cancer:
The reality is that cancer is a plague all over the world. While researchers haven’t discovered the exact causes, it has already been demonstrated that you can prevent cancer if you stand rather than sit. The reality is that even if you exercise on a regular basis but you still sit during the entire day without making any regular breaks to walk for a bit you are most exposed to cancer than someone who does the opposite.
#6: Standing Can Help You With Your Back Pain:
As you probably already know, one of the main causes of back pain in most people is the fact that they have a very sedentary life. So, they just sit for countless hours without moving an inch. At some point, they start to experience some back pain and this is when they try to change positions more often. However, since the back pain is already there, your posture starts to be wrong and the pain keeps increasing.
According to a Stanford University study about back pain, workers who spend their days on standing desks can experience a day of work without feeling any back pain.
As you can see, standing has a lot of advantages over sitting. Nevertheless, if you must sit during the entire day, make sure that you take regular breaks and walk for about 5 minutes. These will help you prevent most of these health problems.
