Stand in the Place that You Work

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist REM lyrics for this)

I’m very lucky to have a desk at work that raises and lowers so that I can either sit or stand, depending on what I’m doing or how I’m feeling. My home office, however, has a simple table and chair, so I have to get up in order to move around and stretch throughout the day.

What I’m coming to appreciate more and more is that if I stand at my desk (or anywhere else), I’m always moving a little bit. I’m shifting my weight from side to side or twisting a little at the waist or maybe doing a little back bend to help straighten up a bit more. Sitting down discourages most movements below the waist–otherwise you’d risk standing up or falling out of your chair. Standing affords the opportunity to move in a lot of other ways more quickly, without having to get up out of a chair first. I can even squat down, bend at the hips, stand on one leg or hop up and down on the balls of my feet—so many options are there, at the ready, because standing is a much more mobile position than sitting.

This experience highlights one of the concepts that Katy Bowman talks about in her book Move Your DNA: it’s not that standing is any better than sitting: it’s that any stationary position is worse than almost any movement.