Oh, a wicked slave to fad am I...

I've read quite a number of items having to do with rearranging one's work area so as to require one to stand while working (some really eager-beavers even place a treadmill under their feet, which seems to me to be one step past where I am willing to go, but I digress...).

So I did a little arranging, consisting of boosting my desk vertically a whole foot, roughly, and this post is being tapped while standing.

The idea behind this change has to do with two things: (1) Better posture, which cannot be achieved by sitting in a chair, however well ergonimically designed, for as much as I do every day, and (2) increased combustion of calories, as it take more energy to stand than to sit.

Moreover, that increased burn comes as a result of about the lowest-impact exercise I can think of: standing. While there are several studies out there suggesting that a lot of sitting is bad for you, about the only hazard I've read about associated with excessive standing is the possibility of developing varicose veins. So we'll see.

A couple of additional outcomes come to mind that I haven't seen mentioned in the articles I've read. One additional desirable outcome of this experiment would be to get everything done that needs to be done in fewer hours at the keyboard. There have been days when I can almost feel the keyboard and my fingertips becoming one, and not in a good way. The other desirable outcome has to do with not bringing food with me to my desk.

Cheers...

At the end of the day...

I deliberately selected a day with a relatively light workload to start my "standing" experiment, so as not to find myself struggling to some high-pressure finish line with more on my emotional plate, so to speak, than usual.

I can definitely give experiment full marks for posture on this first day, and for legs that felt a bit wobbly early in the afternoon (taken care of with a nap). I do find myself, at this juncture, unwilling to spend "extra" time on my feet (or at least, standing still in front of the monitors, as I have tended to move around a lot more). This makes me wonder how standing while typing will affect the quality of what I compose, from the perspective of applying myself over some period of time, especially as there are times when I tend to proceed positively glacially in deciding how text is to be worded.

We'll see.

One unexpected benefit of the change is having a better view out the window that opens onto the Rockies and the Continental Divide (although in truth, the bottom 1/3 of the window is obscured by snow falling from our roof). The view, I must admit, always seems to raise my spirits from whatever their level might be at the time.

Cheers...