Check it out below to learn a bit more about how sitting all day on the job impacts your physical and mental health. To start, people with sedentary jobs are twice as likely to die from heart disease than those with active jobs (yikes!).

You may want to stand up after reading this:

The post MindBodyGreen Agrees that Sitting is Making You Fat appeared first on Xdesk Blog.

You know the habits that can creep in during a long work day – daydreaming about lunch, staring at the computer screen or browsing the web while that report remains unwritten. Sitting in one position all day can have a negative effect on a person’s mood and cloud the mind.

Luckily, if you own a standing desk, adjusting your position can get you out of a rut.

Lifehacker shared the psychological benefits of standing desks and how they help keep your mind moving throughout the day.

“Something about standing keeps me more engaged,” Ben from Pitch Dreams says. “My mind wanders less and for some reason I feel a bit more energized at work.”

He summarizes scientific research from Amy Cuddy, author of the TED talk, Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are (& how to create confidence and influence out of thin air).

Standing in specific “power poses” produces more testosterone that changes the body’s physiology and increases focus. Working at a standing desk naturally positions you into these certain poses, which subconsciously leads to better productivity.

Standing increases blood circulation, and we know what that means: more oxygen getting to the brain, which in turns revitalizes a person to see their mundane work tasks in a new light. Try standing most of the day and feel the brain cells spark and the creativity flow.

via LifeHacker

The post The Psychological Benefits of Standing appeared first on Xdesk Blog.

Dr. Joan Vernikos, former director of NASA’s Life Sciences Division and author of Sitting Kills, Moving Heals, presents a simple yet powerful scientific explanation for why sitting has such a dramatic impact on your health, and how you can easily counteract the ill effects of sitting.

She was one of the primary doctors responsible for ensuring the health of the astronauts as they went into space, investigating the health ramifications of space travel, and what can be done to counter them (on a side note, one of my initial life ambitions was to be an astronaut, up until college when I opted for pre-med. I’m glad I didn’t pursue being an astronaut because I think there are far too many health dangers associated with working in space).

My primary passion is improving health, which is why I’m very excited about Dr. Vernikos’ work. There have been a number of studies within the last year or two that show that even if you are very fit, exercising as much as five times a week for a half an hour to an hour, you can fall far short of optimum fitness if you sit most of the day.

You’re even at an increased risk of dying prematurely. Dr. Vernikos’ research with astronauts has clarified why this occurs and, even more importantly, provides us with a simple regimen that could counteract those consequences.

In order to determine why regular exercise does not compensate for the negative effects of prolonged sitting, some of her research focused on finding out what type of movement is withdrawn by sitting. What she discovered was as revolutionary as it was counter intuitive.

Not only did she discover that the act of standing up is more effective than walking for counteracting the ill effects of sitting, the key is how many times you stand up. It’s actually the change in posture that is the most powerful signal in terms of having a beneficial impact on your health, not the act of standing in and of itself.

Put another way, the key to counteract the ill effects of sitting is to repeatedly interrupt your sitting. The key is frequent intermittent interactions with gravity. Standing up 35 times at once will provide only a small percent of the benefit of standing up once every 20 minutes.

It’s All About Interacting Regularly With Gravity

During Skylab, which was the longest mission Dr. Vernikos worked on in the early 1970’s, many medical observers noted that astronauts were prematurely aging while in space. Interestingly, the changes that were occurring were found to be very similar to what happens to you when you’re bedridden, and to the aging process itself. Initially, Dr. Vernikos referred to these phenomena as parallel processes, as she could not prove a cause and effect that were identical to all three. That eventually changed when she was doing a bed-rest study:

“I was helping a friend out whose parents had come from Greece and spoke no English,” she says. “The lady had fallen and broken her hip, had it fixed and replaced. But she refused to stand up and get out of bed. She eventually ended up in a nursing home in California… What struck me at the nursing home was that many of the things I saw in these older people were very similar to what I could see in my subjects who have been lying in bed for seven days. Especially when they got out of bed, when balance and coordination is affected, and they would pass out when standing up, and they would shuffle their feet.

I thought, well, this is very strange. The people who are in bed, and the astronauts, recover. But here are these people in the nursing home who are showing exactly the same changes. Maybe one should turn the question around?

Maybe the question is not ‘what causes the changes in them—is it or isn’t it aging?’ Maybe it is the conditions that they find themselves in—the inactivity or the relative inactivity in space that induces these changes rather than the number of years one has? When I started asking that question, then some of the research began to make sense.”

Did you know that the changes in bone and muscle that occur here on Earth in one year’s time–approximately one percent loss of bone or one percent loss of muscle–occur in just one week to one month when you’re in space? Incredibly, you get close to a 10-fold acceleration of the aging process when you live in a gravity-free environment! And this is part of the equation when it comes to explaining why chronic sitting is an independent risk factor for premature death.

Astronaut Legend Proves Biological Age Can Be Counteracted

Astronaut John Glenn was the first man to perform an orbital flight. He eventually became a US Senator, and at the age of 77 became the oldest man in space, thanks to Dr. Vernikos when he participated in her experiment to validate her theory of aging in the micro-gravity of space.

“[Glenn] happened to be chair of the Committee on Aging at the time,” she says. “It occurred to him, as he was listening to all these testimonies, that what he heard was very much like what he had experienced and what he knew his colleagues were experiencing as they flew. So, he got very excited.

One day in 1997, he walked into my office. He had done some fantastic research… comparing the aerospace medicine textbook with the PDR on the effects of aging and drew comparisons between the two. He said, ‘Well, I think if I flew again, it could provide information that could help everyone as we age’… I was concerned not because of what might happen to him during the nine days of flight, but what might happen to him in terms of recovery.”

Still, the flight took place, placing Glenn at the age of 77 in space with five other astronauts, averaging in age between 35 and 45. The results, which were double-blind, were presented before a full auditorium at the NIH.

“What they showed on the slide was that out of the seven people who flew, one was an outlier. So, we all thought to ourselves, ‘Oh, dear, they’re his. He’s an outlier. He’s older, that’s why’… This confirms that if you’re older, you will react differently.”

But when the identities of the astronauts in the data points were revealed, John Glenn was NOT the outlier. A 35-year-old astronaut was. Glenn was actually right in the middle of the cluster of astronauts, suggesting that if you’re healthy and fit, you really can do anything, regardless of your age. His recovery post-flight also turned out to be just as fast as his younger peers.

Your Lifestyle Determines How Quickly Your Body Ages

What this means for us living permanently here on Earth is that the changes that accompany aging are more likely a result of our lifestyle rather than the inevitable outcome associated with a numerical or physiological age.

The good news is that you can prevent, and to a great degree delay, the damage associated with a large portion of biological aging, especially the most crippling, which is pain with movement and loss of flexibility that you had as a youth.

It also means that getting too hung up on a once-a-day exercise routine is to put the cart before the horse. FIRST you need to make sure you’re engaging in more or less perpetual non-exercise movement, as this is an independent risk factor.

You then want to add structured exercise on top of that to reap all the benefits associated with exercise. Going to the gym a few times a week for an hour isn’t going to counteract hours upon hours of chronic uninterrupted sitting, which essentially mimics a micro-gravity situation, i.e. you’re not exerting your body against gravity. Only frequent non-exercise movement will do that.

“What became abundantly clear to me very quickly was that gravity plays a big role in our physiological function and in the aging process,” Dr. Vernikos says.

Fortunately, there’s nothing complicated about this. The key point is to move and shift position often, when you’re sitting down. Meaning, you want to interrupt your sitting as often as possible.

“We were designed to squat. We were designed to kneel. Sitting is okay, but it’s uninterrupted sitting that is bad for us,”Dr. Vernikos says. “We are not designed to sit continuously. We are not designed to be in quasi-microgravity… It’s not how many hours of sitting that’s bad for you, it’s how often you interrupt that sitting that is GOOD for you!”

The other thing is that when I say ‘Stand up,’ then you say, ‘Okay, standing is the opposite of sitting.’ No, standing is not the opposite of sitting, because sitting continuously is bad for you, and standing continuously is bad for you. The body is not designed to respond to square waves. Any retail employee will tell you that they suffer all kinds of consequences of many hours of standing on the job. Even nurses have known this for years: standing on the job is not good for you It’s about interrupting the sitting. Interrupting the sitting is not necessarily walking, it is the change in posture [that matters].”

Gravity as a Stimulus to Achieve Health…

Interestingly, lipoprotein lipase is dramatically reduced during inactivity, and increases with activity, the most effective activity being, you guessed it, standing up from a seated position. Lipoprotein lipase is an enzyme that attaches to fat in your bloodstream and transports it into your muscles to be used as fuel. So essentially, by standing up you are actively helping your body to burn fat for fuel. But what is it about the mechanism of standing up that would account for this?

“These are all movements, almost below-threshold kind of movements, that do not burn up a lot of calories, as we know them, but that are designed to work against gravity,” Dr. Vernikos explains.

Dr. Vernikos views gravity a bit differently from the norm. She thinks of gravity as a virtual rod that runs through your body when you’re standing up, and down to the center of the Earth. This virtual rod acts as a stimulus for your body, or put another way, gravity is a source of stimulation to your body. When you use it and challenge its downward force, you get a sense of acceleration and a sense of fun. Examples include jumping, skipping rope, cycling, downhill skiing, snow- or body-boarding…

“I’ve come to the conclusion that all the fun activities that we indulge in are based on gravity,” she says. “All these fun activities, all these games and play that we think of, are gravity-dependent. We are using gravity every which way. The moral to the story is be a child again. Have fun. Play!”

On Picking a Better Office Chair… And Standing Up 35 Times a Day

A better alternative to the traditional office chair, according to Dr. Vernikos, would be an upright wooden chair with no armrest.

“I will accept the armrest if you promise me that you really rest your elbows on it. You’re not resting your elbows, are you? If you rest your elbows and push them back every so often, which means your shoulder blades are being pushed back, and then you can relax again. But you do it as often as you possibly can. That will correct a lot of your postural problems. But if you sit in a hard back chair, a good old-fashioned chair, it can have a nice comfortable pillow, but it forces you to stand up and to sit up straight,” she says.

In the end, it’s really all about structuring your life to incorporate everyday body movements that your parents and grandparents used to do in the course of day-to-day living: picking stray socks off the floor, stirring a pot of sauce, reaching up high for an item in a cupboard, getting off the couch to change the channel, walking to the mailbox and back.

Think about it… if you didn’t have a computer or a smart phone, what would you have to do to get that message to a friend, for example?

Dr. Vernikos calls these types of movements gravity habits or “G habits.” These are all movements that are quantified as non-exercise activities, and the challenge is to get more of them into your daily life.

When it comes to interrupting your sitting, you want to stand up around 35 times a day or so to counteract the cardiovascular health risks associated with sitting. This is based on double-blind research where volunteers would spend four days in bed to induce detrimental changes.

She then tested two groups to see which was more effective, walking or standing, and how long would you have to walk or how many times do you have to stand up to get better again.

• Standing up once every hour was more effective than walking on a treadmill for 15 minutes for cardiovascular and metabolic changes

• Sitting down and standing up repeatedly for 32 minutes does NOT have the same effect as standing up once, 32 times over the course of a day. To get the benefit, the stimulus must be spread throughout the day

What I Now Do to Interrupt My Sitting

After reading Dr. Vernikos book, Sitting Kills, Moving Heals, I was inspired to give some serious attention to this because even though I perform a lot of structured exercise, including high intensity interval training, I was guilty of sitting down a vast majority of the rest of the day.

So what I’ve done is this: I found an online timer and set it to go off every 20 minutes. When it goes off, I stand up and do four jump squats. I thought of this after looking at a table of different activities that increase your exposure to gravity in her book. One of them was jumping up and down, which gets you up to six times gravity.

Alternatively, I stand really slow and sit really slow five times doing a foundation posture, or I do five one-legged squats and alternate during each period. As explained by Dr. Vernikos, squatting is an extension of standing.

If you squat and stand, you can get the maximum benefit of working against the force of gravity. By adding jumping to it (going from a squat to a jump, landing into a squat again), you end up with about 6.5 G’s. However, an interesting update to this interview is that I introduced Dr. Vernikos to Dr. Eric Goodman, the creator of Foundation Training, and she was excited to learn of his work as she believes it may provide an even more effective solution.

They have yet to actually meet at this time but I am hoping they will have a fruitful collaboration and be able to report, at a future date, on a refinement of these current recommendations.

It’s Never Too Late to Start Delaying Aging

One of the most exciting aspects of Dr. Vernikos’ research is that it shows how dynamic and changeable the human body is. You can reverse damage already incurred, and it’s never too late to start.

That is a massively important fact that you want to embrace. Your body CAN recover from the damage you have likely been inflicting on it for decades. Obviously, the younger and healthier you are, the quicker your body will likely respond.

“That’s why I called my first book The G-Connection: Harness Gravity and Reverse Aging,” she says. “[Because] yes, you can change what you are. Your body changes all the time. We have new cells being generated all the time – new brain cells – which was thought not to be the case some years ago, as well as new cells everywhere, including skin cells.”

You can boost the gravity stimulus by using either a sway plate, or a whole body vibration plate such as the Power Plate. This can be particularly beneficial for if you’re advancing in age. But other than that, what Dr. Vernikos is advocating is NOT exercise. It’s simply regular movements of everyday life:

“When you’re moving around and you see a speck on the floor, you bend down to pick it up, is that exercise? No. If you reach up to get a book off the shelf or a pot off the cupboard, is it exercise? No. When you brush your teeth, is it better to brush with a brush or with an electric brush? Electric brush already takes away some of the movement that we would normally do with a regular brush. Play golf… [but] don’t take a cart. Carry your golf-bag.”

An important and fascinating perspective that Dr. Vernikos brings to the table is that if you had to choose between starting non-exercise activity or starting an exercise program. Dr. Eric Goodman also believes similarly. He is in fantastic shape. He used to be a personal trainer and body builder but hasn’t worked out formally in many years. He does his Foundation work throughout each day. They both believe non-exercise activities are more important than regular exercise programs, but ideally you would do both. Dr. Vernikos states:

“Yes, it’s my belief that the non-exercise activities are the foundation of your body tuning and your health, and more important than regular exercise,” she says. “Regular exercise is the next step. You build on the foundation.”

In short, as long as we understand the basic requirements that are dictated by our human ancestors, our biochemistry or genetics, and if we honor those with relatively simple techniques that only take a few minutes a day, it can have dramatic and profound implications on our health and on the quality and length of our life.

To learn more, I highly recommend picking up Dr. Vernikos book, Sitting Kills, Moving Heals, available online at Amazon. It’s an easy read, but it helps to reinforce the concepts discussed in this interview. via Mercola.com

Have you read Sitting Kills, Moving Heals? What are your thoughts?

The post Sitting Kills, Moving Heals [via Mercola] appeared first on Xdesk Blog.

Walking can reduce the risk of diabetes, prevent cancer and boost your brain function.

If you want to know how good for you walking is, read on. But to feel it for yourself, here is a simple experiment: One day at work, try just sitting down all day in front of your desk. Get everything done. Then go home.

The next day, try using a treadmill desk—if you don’t have one yet, try just taking walking breaks as often as you can. Walk down the hall rather than send a co-worker an email, walk up the stairs, or take walking meetings. Just keep moving!

Compare the days and I know you will find that on day two you were more productive, felt healthier, more energetic, looser, lighter, and probably happier overall (Unless you turned your ankle or something the second you stepped out the door. In which case, sorry about that!).

Why does walking feel so good? In today’s post we’ll go over 7 reasons why walking is good for your health.

1) Walking can help you lose weight.
The average resident of a walkable neighborhood weighs 6-10 pounds less than someone who lives in a sprawling neighborhood.

Neighborhoods with poor walkability are barriers to physical activity. Research shows that people walk more if living in a walkable neighborhood. If you can’t help but live in a sprawling area, do what more and more people are doing these days and invest in a treadmill desk.

2) Walking can help prevent cancer.
Yes, really. Just one quick example: Women who walked 1 to 3 hours per week had reduced the risk of death from breast and uterine cancer by 19 percent. When they walked 3 to 5 hours per week, their risks of the same cancers were reduced by 54 percent, according to a study by Harvard University.

3) Walking can reduce your risk of diabetes.
A recent study of more than 3,000 overweight adults found that walking 2.5 hours per week (along with a healthy diet) reduced their risk of developing diabetes by 58 percent. For overweight adults 60 years and older, the risk was reduced to 71 percent.

4. Walking can keep your arteries unclogged.
In the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, a study found that exercise before a meal may help stem the effects of high-fat foods on blood vessel function. Unclogged vessels and arteries keep blood circulating throughout the body.

5) Walking can help prevent heart disease.
Studies show that as walking increases, heart disease decreases. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, retired men who walked more than 1.5 miles per day had a significantly lower risk for heart disease (compared to men who walk less).

6) Walking can reduce blood pressure.
Getting the recommended 10,000 steps a day, or even a minimal 30 minutes of walking each day can significantly reduce blood pressure.

7) Walking can boost your brain.
Many studies prove that exercise can improve mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. It is also shown that physical activity (like walking) can help boost self-esteem and brain function. So, want to get out of a rut? Try going for a walk.

Of course, as mentioned above, in the best possible scenario you will be able to walk around your city, to work, to the store… But we can’t all live in New York (though with the population density, it seems people are trying!).

So what is the next best thing? Walk while you work. Take breaks, get outside and enjoy the fresh air, try working remotely from the park, and when you’re in the office, try using a treadmill desk like the new Xdesk Fit.

No matter how you do it, just keep walking. Your body will thank you for it!

Do you use a treadmill desk? Have you noticed a difference in the way you feel at work and after?

The post Walking Your Way to Better Health appeared first on Xdesk Blog.

Using a treadmill at your desk can help you lose 45 to 65 pounds per year.

In a previous post we went over some of the top benefits of using a treadmill desk while at work. You can improve your posture, your muscle tone, your energy and much more (Let’s just say there are a lot of benefits to using a treadmill with your desk!).

In today’s post, I thought we could expand on one benefit in particular that a lot of people seem to be interested in: weight loss. And it’s no wonder why—The US is a country where over 1/3 of its adults are not just overweight but obese. I’m not criticizing or pointing fingers, I’m just saying that it is high time something is done about this. And a treadmill with your desk is a good place to start.

Think about it, if about 1/3 of adults in this country are obese, a whole lot of those folks are probably working desk jobs. In fact, in this age of computers and technology, most people are working desk jobs. And did you know that when you’re sitting, you’re only burning 1 calorie per minute? That is nothing, people!

Xdesk’s latest option of the treadmill with desk couldn’t get here at a better time. People are obese, sure, but our nation is smarter now. We know the facts. And we are ready to make a change.

How much change can you expect with a treadmill at your desk? According to the British Journal of Medicine, you will burn about 191 kcals/hour when using a treadmill with desk, compared to a measly 60-70 kcals/hour when you’re sitting down.

Furthermore, if you replace your sitting time with walking and working at a treadmill with your desk for 2-3 hours per day, you can lose up to 20-30 kg per year.

These folks are British, so let me put this into perspective for you:

If you swap just 2-3 of your regular sitting time with using a treadmill desk, you will lose about 45-65 pounds per year. Just by switching to a treadmill with desk for 2-3 hours a day! Just imagine what would happen if you coupled that with a healthier diet.

Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let me point out that the benefits of using a treadmill with your desk are not restricted to obese desk-workers, or even those folks who want to lose weight. With a treadmill desk you’re not only able to shed away pounds (or kg!), you’re also able to get healthier overall.

In a previous post I discussed my own experience with a treadmill desk and I can honestly say, I felt more energetic, more productive, and my whole body felt looser, simply by being in motion while I was working.

As you’ve probably read in this blog before, I “accidentally” lost weight simply by switching to Xdesk’s adjustable height desk. And I can only imagine what a treadmill with my desk would do for me.

I’ll tell you something: it is definitely going on my Christmas list next year.

Do you use a treadmill with desk at work? How do you like it?

Sources: CDC.gov

The post Pair a Treadmill With Your Desk & Lose Weight appeared first on Xdesk Blog.

Ever wonder why you can’t shed those last few pounds? Here’s why.

If you are like countless Americans, you’re probably trying to lose weight. And, like countless Americans, you are probably sitting down while you read this—perhaps at work at your traditional, seated desk.

Obviously, there is a direct correlation between these two facts. Sitting down for long periods of time can and will add fat to your body—particularly in the areas that you are sitting on (namely butt and thighs). I’ll go deeper into this in just a moment, but first I want to reassure you that there is a solution: It’s called a Xdesk Fit, the latest treadmill workstation.

That’s right, you don’t have to rush into your boss’s office or pick up the phone and dial your employer with your two weeks’ notice. Change the way you work with the Xdesk Fit treadmill workstation.

There is hope. And now that I’m sure you won’t do anything rash, let me get back to the science behind my claim:

Sitting makes you fat.

A recent study has shown that by sitting for long periods of time, your body can generate up to 50 percent more fat in those areas (as mentioned above: hips, butt and thighs).

In this study, the participants who were sitting for long periods of time developed 50 percent more liquid fat (gross!) than regular fat cells.

Furthermore, exercise outside of the office isn’t enough to counteract the long periods of sitting at work. This face got my attention, because I have always been very active—after work. But for many years, I would sit at my office desk for about 8 hours a day, taking only short breaks to walk or stand, and then go to the gym. I never really thought I needed to lose weight, exactly, but I didn’t understand why I wasn’t with my active workout schedule.

So when I read a study that claimed “even those who eat well and exercise will have more fat at the waistline and hips from excess sitting,” well, I stood up.

But to take your calorie-burn even a step further than using a standing desk or adjustable height desk, you need to be moving. That’s where the latest innovation, the Xdesk Fit treadmill workstation, comes in.

With a treadmill workstation you can burn about 100 times more calories than you when you’re sitting. And with a Xdesk Fit you’re not walking that fast (you’d be hard pressed to focus on work if you were!).

The simple act of moving and lightly walking with your treadmill desk for just 2-3 hours a day can help you to burn fat, and even lose up to 45-65 pounds in a year.

Now I said treadmill workstation, rather than treadmill desk because with Xdesk’s latest and greatest, you’re truly getting a complete workstation—not just a dinky table.

To find out more about losing weight the right way—with the Xdesk Fit from Xdesk in particular—check out our previous post about this marvel in ergonomic furniture.

Trust me, I’ve tried it out and I’m counting down the days until I can get my own treadmill workstation.

Happy walking everyone!

Do you use a treadmill workstation at work or home? Share your thoughts and tips below!

The post Why You’re Not Losing Weight appeared first on Xdesk Blog.