How to use a standing desk to work healthily from kayneshed's blog

How to use a standing desk to work healthily

But no matter what, the best standing desk is not just "standing".

Whether it is sedentary or standing, the health of the body is actually to maintain static behavior for a long time, so let yourself "regular movement" is the key to a healthy office - alternating between standing and sitting, moderate activity, and maintaining the correct posture in each state.

1. Calculate the appropriate height for each office posture

Although the name of the electric standing desk has the word "standing" in it, but its freedom to adjust the height of a wide range of features, we can use it to adjust the comfortable office standing and sitting posture.

Adjustment of a comfortable standing posture

The correct posture in principle is very simple, that is, we often say "stand straight". Standing to ensure that the head backs hip feet in a straight line, the center of gravity between the two feet. As for the keyboard height, it should be lower or slightly lower than the elbow height at sit stand desk.

The Aegis website provides a space planning calculator that allows you to calculate the ideal monitor height and desktop height based on your height (all provided are keyboard heights).

Aegis: Space Planning Calculator

However, if you are engaged in a job that is not keyboard-operated, different workstation heights in adjustable height desk are required for different work environments, according to the recommendations, as follows:

Fine work, such as writing or assembly of electronic components, where the workbench is preferably below 5cm from the elbow and the elbow needs to be supported;

Light work, such as assembly line assembly, workbench preferably below 5-10cm at the elbow;

For heavy work requiring downward force, the workbench should preferably be 20-40cm below the elbow.

If you plan to stand for long periods of time, you may also consider purchasing footrests. Footrests allow you to swap your weight between your legs without affecting your standing posture.

Adjust to a comfortable sitting posture

Comfortable sitting posture is also very simple: keep the body's shoulders and chest open, so that the spine maintains the physiological curvature and fits the L-shaped standing desk to share the pressure; to get the back of the chair (or lumbar cushion) support, feet flat on the ground (try not to cross your legs), elbows are also best supported.

If you use the computer and keyboard to work, you can adjust the sitting posture in the following two steps:

First adjust the height of the small standing desk: let the height of the chair slightly higher than the knee joint, to relieve the pressure on the knee joint

Then adjust the height of the desktop: sit upright when the arms remain naturally down, the elbow angle between 90 degrees to 120 degrees.

The specific height requirements for working with a keyboard can also be found in the Aegis Space Planning Calculator.

If your daily work is not to use the keyboard, but mainly to read and write, you can refer to this table:

Desktop height (mm) Chair height (mm) Standard height (cm) Height range (cm)

790 460 187.5 >= 180

760 440 180 173 - 187

730 420 172.5 165 - 179

700 400 165 158 - 172

670 380 157.5 150 - 164

640 360 150.0 143 - 157

610 340 142.5 135 - 149

Source: National Standard: Functional dimensions and technical requirements for school desks and chairs.

1. Appropriate arrangement of office objects

Always face work items, so that other items needed for work are easily accessible so that you can avoid changing the existing office posture in the process of accessing an item in front of adjustable desk with drawers.

1. regular alternate standing and sitting and moderate exercise

Due to the aforementioned dangers of standing and sitting, it is necessary to alternate standing and sitting regularly and to exercise while standing. At first, I used the Apple Watch timer to remind me to switch my posture, but since I often turned it off and went back to work, I wrote my own script to force a 5-minute screen break every 25 minutes (only during free office time, not during meetings, etc.). If you don't want to take a 5-minute break, the screen will only unlock after you type in a paragraph (usually grabbing tech news) from the exact keyboard.

So far, I've been leaving the computer to wander around for a while for the sake of it, and then coming back to switch office positions five minutes later.

Need to type long text to unlock the computer with standing gaming desk.

Note: I found that there is already more sophisticated similar software in the Mac, such as Take a break, there are related needs of friends can.

1. drink more water

Another way I keep myself active than a timer is to drink more water.

People have three emergencies, the game is fun, the movie is good, the bathroom appeal is always greater. I try to drink a 500ml glass of warm water during each break, which ensures adequate daily water intake and physically interrupts the act of sitting still for long periods of time in a standing computer desk.
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1. Prepare a pair of appropriate shoes

The standing office requires a lot of shoes: not cramped (meaning changing the shape of the foot), not completely flat (needing support at the arch), no heels over 4cm, and no thin heels.

In order to exercise at work and to make it easier to stand up, I keep a pair of soft-soled shoes that meet the above conditions at work and change them at the beginning of each shift, and then change back to leather shoes when I need to attend a formal event. This way, even if I don't have separate time to exercise, I can keep myself moving regularly through standing meetings and sitting ergonomic office chair.
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