Is Standing At Work Beneficial For Cardiovascular Health?
Cardiovascular diseases are those diseases that include disturbances that arise in the heart and blood vessels. They mainly include strokes, angina attacks, and shocks. According to research done in the European heart journal, spending less time sitting and more of it standing is beneficial as it helps to lower cholesterol, blood sugar levels, and weight. This, in turn, causes a decrease in the prevalence of heart diseases.
The main risk to CVDs arises at a closed work environment where most of the work is being done while being glued to chairs. Intervals of standing for a little continual time, walking and keeping your metabolic rates high are always directly proportional to low risk for CVDs.
Who are we targeting here?
While you might be wondering if you can manage a bit of standing action in your sitting routine, workers with jobs that require continuous standing are of the main concern here. They include all those employees that stand for more than 4 hours a day with very little opportunities to sit. Such professions include hotel front-desk clerks, assembly line workers, bank tellers, retail workers, grocery store cashiers, etc. However, office workers always have an option to sit against a wall or on a chair when they get tired. Ultimately, all those with a higher proportion of standing in their routines develop better cardiovascular health.
Duration
With this concept in mind that a standing job is saving your cardiovascular health, you should be keen about standing and sitting durations as well. Prolonged sitting or standing at work will double the risk of all cardiovascular diseases. This drastic change is also accompanied by severe posture, bone density, and joint deformities.
Risk factors
The main risk factors for such conditions to develop don’t revolve around standing for long. They might also include age, ethnicity, educational levels, gender, immigration, and marital statuses. Health problems like hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, anxiety also add to its prevalence chances. Lastly, the work type also is one of the main determinants of disturbances in cardiovascular health.
How to alter your routine?
You are aware of the fact that standing for a controlled period of time and boosting your metabolic rates are contributing factors in boosting your cardiovascular health. If your basic routine lacks a regular chance to stay on your feet, here are some situations where you can ignore a seat and stand instead:
- While you sort the mail or fold clothes
- While you are at the stop waiting for the train or bus
- Watching TV
- Talking on phone
- Preparing meals
- Conversing to colleagues during breaks
Don’t force yourself into this lifestyle
While our bodies were not intended to sit for 6 or 7 hours consistently, standing throughout the day isn’t a possibility for everybody. Standing consumes more calories as our souls work more diligently to circle blood upward, yet standing additionally puts more strain on our veins, backs, and joints, particularly in case we’re overweight. Furthermore, the execution of many fine motor skills, for example, PC work, diminishes when individuals stand as opposed to sitting.
Should you switch to standing desks?
Switching to such desks to maintain your cardiovascular health is a vague cure. You might instead need to move about throughout the day, eat good food, and exercise your mind and body to establish good health. However, even if you’re frequent and religious in doing any of the one aforementioned things; it can be as beneficial for you as doing all three imprecisely altogether. You can also aid yourself by using supportive shoes and putting soft mats in the workspace. This will decrease the load put on your joints or back.
Changes in the heart rate
The physically demanding idea of standing has incremental effects on the heart rate as well. Standing has shown to increase your heart rate by 10 to 20 beats per minute. This happens because your heart pumps blood faster to compensate for the energy consumption by your muscles. This, in turn, keeps your upright and conscious. Standing also results in an increment in the calorie expenditure from the body. These co-related processes seem to have a little effect per day. However, on a regular basis, they tend to have huge effects in saving your cardiovascular health and much more.
Risk reduction
Certain studies show that excessive standing habits seem to have worsening effects on cardiovascular functions. Except for cooks, the standing requirement of other jobs seems vague for a third person for such long periods of time. Most of the times, they have to stand up straight in order to provide an attentive look and interested and polite gestures. This also shows that apart from these requirements, their work can be done while sitting comfortably as well.
In this well-understood manner, excessive standing habits can be avoided and put under control to make it easy for the employees to practice a healthy lifestyle. This is the way they can invest their productive time in different tasks rather than feeling tired and wasting their time after a tedious standing time at work. In a general idea, making work environments more and more flexible will play a key role in maintaining such practices for a long time. They will help continue such acts inside and outside the work environment easily.
Verdict
In the end, the most confusing aspect of this whole discussion is the discriminating point between standing and sitting. Normally, it should be well-understood that prolonged sitting and standing, both, are bad for your health. Standing improves the metabolic rates a bit more than sitting alone. This also restricts certain conditions associated with an inactive lifestyle.
At the same time, know that standing for the betterment of conditions like joint pains won’t do any justice to the cause. It can be as problematic as sitting seems in the same regard. You need to restructure your routine in a manner that it balances both the acts in the same plane.
