You may have heard or seen people using a standing desk; these pieces of office furniture have recently gained a lot of traction once people started learning about the benefits. This style of desk allows you to complete your job while standing up rather than sitting in a chair. Using a laptop standing desk can be beneficial for your body and overall health.
Standing Desks Improves Posture
When sitting at your desk, you may know the correct way to sit to ensure you have good posture; keeping your back straight and your feet firmly planted on the ground. This, however, is a hard task to continue doing for eight hours a day, every day. Usually, you are more likely to be slouching with your back and neck bent while disproportionally shifting your body weight. This can leave you with poor posture, even when you are not working or at a desk.
While using a stand up desk, you are unable to slouch or hunch over. To stay in the most comfortable position, you will have to stand up straight with your spine aligned. This change will not only be of value to your comfort, but to your overall health as well. Standing up more often, will improve your core strength to help you with your posture on a long term basis.
Diary Entry
You can use diary entries as a way to keep notes about your physical posture in an organized format. The CareClinic app has a great feature that can assist you with keeping track of your posture. The diary entry feature is made to let you write freely about a topic that you want to maintain logs. These diary entries will help you to understand what improvements you are making after using a standing desk. While using CareClinic’s diary feature, you can add pictures to your entries so you can visually see the progress of your posture through neck and back alignment.
Diary Entry Example
An example of how you can use the diary entry feature can be explained through Bill’s use of the feature. Bill is a 24 year old man that has been working a desk job for a little over a year. He noticed that over the past year his posture has significantly declined because he would slouch when he was sitting and working. As a result of this, he started experiencing neck and back pains; this was something that Bill wanted to avoid, so he deciding to look into standing desks for laptops.
Bill found a laptop standing desk that would fit and work well for his work. He wanted to ensure that the laptop standing desk was actually benefiting him and improving his posture; this led him to download the CareClinic app and use the diary entry feature to write about his experience. Bill made notes about how he felt an almost instant relief for his neck and back pain ever since he started using his laptop standing desk. He also took photos of his posture as it slowly went back to alignment over time. These photos were added to his diary entries associated with the time the pictures were taken. From this, Bill was able to see his progress of the improvements he made to his posture, thanks to CareClinic.
Health Benefits for Standing Desks
The benefits towards your spine and core muscles are quite clear when considering standing desks; however, there are many more advantages that a standing desk can provide for you with your overall health. When you are standing, you experience an increase heart rate in comparison to sitting; this increase in heart rate can help lower the chances of certain cardiovascular problems like heart disease. Although using a standing desk can improve your cardiovascular health, you will have to maintain healthy habits in other aspects of your life to see desirable results. Standing desks can be a good start to improving your overall health.
In addition, your body burns more calories when you are standing up versus when you are sitting down; you can use your work time as an opportunity to burn calories while combatting weight gain. If you are sitting at your desk for many hours a day, your body is at a standstill which will in turn make your rate for metabolism constant or slow down. While standing, your metabolism can increase which can combat a slow and steady increase of weight. In comparison to sitting while working, a standing desk allows you to naturally burn 25 – 50 more calories an hour.
It is important to note that standing desks are still fairly new to the market and that limits the amount of scientific research into the benefits; however, it is clear that standing is a better alternative than sitting for long periods of time for most people.
Measurement Tracker
You can use a measurement tracker to keep logs of any changes you see in your health and find correlations. The CareClinic app has a measurement feature that allows you to keep logs of certain aspects of your body and lifestyle. One of the main things you can track as a measurement is your weight; the weight tracker lets you to input your current weight and track any increases, decreases or fluctuations. With this information, you can see any potential long-term effects of using standing desks for laptops. The loss of weight will not be as evident quickly, but while tracking this measurement, you can see your progress. If you are using a laptop standing desk to help you maintain weight, this is easier to see early on as you would know if there are any increases in your weight after tracking.
Measurement Tracker Example
An example of using a measurement tracker can be seen through Gina’s experience using one. Gina is a 51 year old woman who noticed that she was feeling like she was unable to do physical activities because she spends all day sitting at her desk while she is working. She decided to look into standing desks for laptops to help her spend less time sitting during the day. Gina found a corner standing desk that fit well in her home office and allowed to do her work standing.
After using her laptop standing desk for a while, she decided she wanted to track her weight to see if her healthy decision was positively affecting other aspects of her life. After downloading the CareClinic app, Gina used the measurement tracker feature to track her weight for a couple of months. She noticed a gradual decline in her weight that she saw from the reports produced by the app. Since she was no longer sitting all day, Gina felt less lazy and decided to be more active overall; this mindset significantly helped her to lose weight and keeping a record of her weight helped her understand her progress.
Feel More Lively While Working
When you are sitting down and lounging, you are in a natural state of relaxation; this is an indication to your body that you are resting. This is a feeling that you do not want to be experiencing when you are trying to focus while completing important work. On the other hand, if you are standing, your body is not in a state of rest and you will likely feel more lively and energetic.
Mood Tracker
Using a mood tracker can enable you to understand if you are feeling more energetic while using a standing desk. The CareClinic app has a mood tracking feature that will allow you to keep logs of your mood. The process is simple, you record your mood at set times throughout the day. You can use CareClinic’s mood tracker feature which will automatically use your data to help you discover correlations. When you keep track of your moods, you can learn a great deal about the timing of your emotional moods. You will be able to track and see if there is any change in mood, energy or focus from keeping a timed log of when you are standing or sitting.
An example of using a mood tracker can be seen from Jim’s experience. Jim is a 43 year old man that wanted to spend less of his work day sitting because it made him feel unfocused. He browsed around for standing desks for laptops as this would be his primary use. After finding his laptop standing desk, he wanted to see if it actually changed his mood and focus throughout the day. He downloaded the CareClinic app to use the mood tracking feature so he can track any potential progress.
On average, he was tracking his mood at a 9 out of 10 after he finished working while standing and using his laptop standing desk. He then compared it to his logs from working while sitting and saw his average was only 7 out of 10. This led him to conclude that he was seeing a difference when he worked while standing; Jim felt more energetic and lively overall when using his laptop standing desk and was highly satisfied with his tracking, logs and outcome.
Boosting Productivity With a Standing Desk
When you are standing you will experience an increase in energy and a lack of distraction which can give you a boost in productivity. If you are feeling tired, you will have a lack of motivation to do your work; using a standing desk can help you stay productive longer. This is because when you are standing you have fewer distractions, allowing your brain to focus longer. When alternating between standing and sitting while doing work, you can create an active and passive cycle for your positioning. If you mix this cycle with your schedule of working hard and focusing and a state of flow, this can have your brain associating your standing cycle with focus; this will leave you working with a high level of increased productivity.
Things to Look Out for When Using a Standing Desk
As with any new routine, you may experience some unwanted side effects if you are not used to standing for long periods of time. Firstly, if you are used to sitting at a desk all day it is suggested that you gradually transition to fully utilizing your standing desk. You can create a schedule to stand while working for short periods of time throughout your day.
After you are comfortable with the duration you’re standing for, you can slowly increase it to longer periods of time. It is important to continue increasing the time gradually because there can be many negative side effects to forcing your body to do something it is not comfortable with. For example, you can be at a greater risk to developing back pain, leg pain or foot pain. This pain comes from the additional stress that you would be putting on your body and muscles when it has not gotten used to it yet.
Using an activity tracker
You can use an activity tracker to aid you in tracking the time that you are standing while working. Using an activity tracker can help with the gradual transition from sitting at your desk all day to standing. The CareClinic app has a feature that lets you track your activity. When you use the activity tracker, you can add notes about your experience. When you make an increase in the duration of the time you use the standing desk, you can make a note about how much you increased the time and how it felt to stand for a longer duration.
An example of how you can use the activity tracker to log the time you stand while working is through Amy’s experience using CareClinic’s app. Amy is a 31 year old woman who has recently bought a corner standing desk for her home office. She is used to sitting at her desk for the eight hours she spends working a day but wanted to try something new. She knows that she needs to gradually build up to standing while working, so she downloads the CareClinic app to help keep track of the time she spends standing during her work day. By doing so, Amy was able to create a schedule that fit well with her working habits and this enabled her to slowly increase the time she spends standing while she is doing her work.
Standing Desk Mat
When you are standing at a desk for a long period of time, it is important to have the right equipment to help you ensure optimal comfort and pain reduction. A standing desk mat is a great option for people that want to use a standing desk for a long period of time. Getting a mat that encourages movement and making standing less tedious can make a huge difference when you choose to stand at work. A standing desk mat is made to give you additional support to your legs and back in a way that the regular floor cannot.
There are many different options you can consider when looking for a standing desk mat; some options focus more on the science of ergonomics but have a larger price tag, while others focus on the essentials and are more budget friendly. An important thing to consider when looking for a standing desk mat is your own personal situation. You will have to consider what you want in a standing desk mat and how often you plan on using it while you are working.
Final Thoughts on Standing Desks
When working at a desk for long period of time, it is important to keep ergonomics and your health in mind. A laptop standing desk can be a great asset to your office space. Using a standing desk can help prevent exhaustion, back pain, and many other health factors if used correctly. Tracking your health or life improvements after getting a standing desk can be helpful for you; CareClinic’s app has many features that can aid you in this process.
