Goodbye to heating the chair at work: Is it good to work standing up in the office?

In many offices there is an unwritten custom of 'warming up the chair', referring to those employees capable of sitting at their desk all the time in the world in order to show their boss how hard they work.

Science refutes that habit with an unexpected twist: incorporating standing times would improve school and work performance.

Less chair, better results

Occupational health scholars from Texas carried out an experiment in elementary and secondary schools consisting of changing conventional desks for desks where students stood during their school day (how long is not specified).

At the end of the course, the students notably improved their results in memory tests and in response time.

Those responsible for the study attribute this to a probable improvement in the functioning of the frontal cortex, possibly because more oxygenated blood reaches the brain in that position than when they are lounging at their desks.

Later studies with adults also come to support the hypothesis that upright posture improves our alertness and predisposes us to change activities more easily.

Although much remains to be investigated, standing is known to short-circuit cerebral serenity.

While sitting down the brain can ignore posture to a certain extent, standing up is constantly recalculating the position of the limbs to maintain balance.

A small shot of stress that helps "put you at the optimal level of alertness and cognitive response", according to molecular neurobiologist, Daniela Kaufer.

But how much time would you have to spend on your feet?

It seems proven that the brain is more alert when standing up and for activities that require an immediate response.

However, there is also evidence that spending a long time upright has negative effects on health, such as fatigue and venous return problems in the lower limbs.

The million dollar question is how much time should be spent standing firm to notice benefits and how to insert it into the workday.

For Ignacio Vázquez, physical trainer and specialist in Mobility, Strength, Prevention and Performance, co-founder of the health and sports science outreach website Píldora Breve, “it is difficult to give a single answer that suits everyone.

It is as bad to spend all the time sitting as standing.

The population with obesity, overweight, poor circulation or previous injuries to the knees, hips, ankles,

back… you should be careful when spending a lot of time on your feet.

Otherwise, the potential benefits are diluted.”

If none of the above circumstances or others that recommend sitting during the working day are present, incorporating standing minutes will make us more efficient.

It's not about being the oddball in the office that spends all day on your feet, but García Vázquez points out some ideas to get us out of the chair.

“For example, getting up for 10 minutes every hour, even doing 30 minutes standing and another 30 sitting down,” he explains.

For those who are fitter, he suggests up to hour-long snippets of standing.

Too much time away from the seat?

"Not necessarily.

Free Zoom video calls last a maximum of 40 minutes.

We can take the opportunity to do them standing up, and the same with quick consultations with a colleague.

Even take notes”, points out his colleague Ignacio Hernando Valle, personal trainer and also a promoter in Píldora Breve.

The point - he explains - is to incorporate standing stretches to always have the brain awake.

An easy way is to take advantage of mobile calls to walk around the office, climb stairs or even go outside.

"On the contrary, to read we concentrate better sitting down, because the letters move up and down when we read standing up", declares this expert.

Short, standing or 'plank' meetings

The

methodology has revolutionized the way of structuring work in large corporations, especially technology ones.

It implies a constant review of the status of each of the tasks.

For this, daily meetings called

meetings are usually held .

They are very short, no more than 15 minutes, just enough for each team leader to update the rest on how their part of the project is going.

In fact, they are colloquially known as

.

Jesús Elorza, professor of Project Management at Edix, acknowledges that “since it is first thing in the morning, if the team sits down, it is easy for them to gain leverage.

On the other hand, standing up everything is more dynamic.

To prevent the one who has the turn to speak from eternally speaking, there are those who propose that the one who explains does so by performing a plank.

Thus, each intervention does not last more than 30-40 seconds and whoever asks to speak makes sure they have something interesting to say”, says Elorza.

This exercise is valid both for face-to-face meetings and for teleworkers who connect from home.

Incorporating some exercise into the workday is received with mixed interest.

While some see it as a way to encourage healthy habits from the work environment, others understand that it could lead to situations of discrimination between the most athletic and sedentary colleagues.

A few years ago, Jey Nagarajan, a computer developer at Oracle, dropped on LinkedIn the possibility of holding meetings first thing in the morning - the

- doing planks.

The answers did not wait.

David Bishop, CEO of Cedowin, responded: “It's an excellent idea, although you have to find a way to make it inclusive for people who can't do certain activities”.

JW Smithe, a Linux developer and IT engineer, on the other hand, showed his disappointment in this way: “Are you looking for a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Well, that's how they talk.

You could even incur discrimination from other groups or have a file opened for workplace harassment.

It is not a substitute for physical activity

Since the advent of activity bracelets, many people take 10,000 steps as the only physical activity of the day.

They even count one by one the calories that they potentially burn in each moment of their life.

Standing burns between 0.1 and 0.19 kilocalories more per minute.

A 150-pound adult who substituted sitting for standing for 6 hours a day would burn an additional 120-kilocalories a day.

It doesn't sound like much, but a year could shed 5 pounds.

In a society obsessed with weight and not so much with health, it might seem like a good prescription against obesity.

“It could be a first step, but to get real health benefits you have to include real physical activity, from light to vigorous.

The exercise prescription must go far beyond walking, you have to work on strength.

And, of course, it is not enough just to spend time on your feet”, concludes Vázquez.

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