Stand up!

News today that less time sitting extends your life.
I am tempted to repeat the Dennis Leary line about smoking reducing your lifespan...and how the years it reduces are the ones he doesn't want, the ones at the very end...
What struck me, and indeed strikes me about 3 times a year when I have chronic back problems, is that sitting is proscribed to millions of office workers every day - I have sat at an office desk for over 25 years, and my back reminds me of that fact often...
Businesses set up their offices with desks that can only be sat at.
Some enlightened businesses encourage certain measures to counteract this. I am a big fan of the standing up meeting, with a waist to chest height table for papers, coffee etc, but no chairs. Studies have shown that such meetings are more productive, quicker, and participants more alert and involved. Completely practical for a 1 hour team meeting , one-to-one discussion with a direct report, maybe less so for an all-day Board or strategy meeting.
And businesses should care...not only does sitting a lot reduce your lifespan (and let's face it, most of those lost years will be in the employee's retirement years, not affecting the company at all...or worse, impacting them "positively" by reducing pension payouts) but it also impacts general health. Just ask my back...
Practically, I have experimented with the idea of a standing up desk. It is great (for a short while to start with...but you can build up time with practice). But too often, my home office looks like a normal office, with some extra storage boxes on the floor next to the desk, designed to prop up the monitor and the keyboard/mouse to enable standing up. The issue is of course, that my boxes are more often on the floor than they are on the desk doing the job they were selected for.
Part of that is habit. It doesn't actually take that long to switch (maybe 5 minutes to rearrange cables etc). And like most habits, it will take 3 to 4 weeks of daily implementation to fix. The photo is my desk in its "stand-up" mode...3 boxes and a few minutes is all it takes to convert from sitting mode to standing.
I would encourage you to try it out...and encourage myself to do at least an hour standing up every day. My commitment is that this blog will, from this day forward, always be written standing up.
Also, if you are a business owner, experiment with some stand-up meeting tables and see what happens. You might just be amazed by the positives, both directly on your business of more efficient and effective meetings, and on your employees health.