Sitting is the new smoking

Today's HR Magazine notes research by the British Heart Foundation showing that sitting for long periods of time can result in greater risk of type two diabetes and cardiovascular illnesses.

“The simple act of standing for even as little as two hours per day can increase muscle activity and have a significant impact on health and wellbeing."

It's something we discussed in depth at Fleming's Smart Workspaces Summit recently.

In fact I was so convinced by the discussions there that once I got home I bought my own sit-stand desk.

I looked at Varidesk which I would have placed on top of my existing desk in our home office but eventually bought a self-standing (or sitting) Bekant desk from IKEA which we've placed in our entrance hall.

I use it pretty much the whole working day now, never mind just 2 hours per day and definitely recommend these desks to you.

But then, I do think a lot what sit-standing is about is flexibility and putting more humanity into the workplace, not just wellbeing.  Plus standing is good, but it's not as good as actually moving around.

So these are my three main workspaces at home now - my sit-stand desk, my elliptical trainer in the garage and just outside the front door (our back garden gets a bit too shady by mid-morning.)

My own advice to organisations is to make all of these types of workspaces available to their staff too.  Including working from home as an option.

And as I've been posting, I think HR needs to involve itself in these areas of the workplace as well.


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