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As reported recently by the BBC, almost half of office-working women (45 percent) and slightly fewer men (37 percent) spend fewer than 30 minutes daily on their feet. In fact, a majority even eat their lunch without ever leaving their workspace and this type of inactivity is taking its toll on their health. Ultimately, this has led to an initiative called Get Britain Standing and one way they recommend that you achieve that goal is by building your own standing desk.
Just making this one little change to the way you do your daily work can lower your risk of the top ten conditions associated with regularly sitting for more than 4 hours a day. These conditions include physical ailments such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity, high blood pressure, muscle degeneration, back and neck pain, and osteoporosis, as well as mental issues like depression and dementia.
So, if building your own standing desk is on your to-do list, here are some tips as provided by Brit + Co:
- Make sure the keyboard is approximately hip-height so your elbows are at a 90 degree angle while typing.
- Place your monitor so it is 20 to 28 inches from your eyes to the screen.
- Tilt the top of your monitor back at a 20 degree tilt so that you’re not staring at a completely vertical screen.
The next question is: where do you put this standing desk? Some options to consider include in the middle of a book shelf, on sawhorses against the wall, or you could even take an existing desk and just make it taller. You might also want to purchase a bar stool so you can alternate between sitting and standing if your legs get tired or you aren’t feeling well and would prefer to sit down that day.
What are your thoughts? Are you willing to give a standing desk a try?
