Go ahead and take a seat for this one. Remember that time you read an article about how sitting all day at a desk will kill you and not just in a dead-on-the-inside way? Well, it turns out that standing all day may not be so great either.
In an admittedly small study, researchers at Curtin University in Australia examined 20 adult subjects who undertook two hours of laboratory-based standing computer work. “Over time, discomfort increased in all body areas,” they wrote in the journal Ergonomics, and “lower limb swelling increased.”
And it wasn’t just physical discomfort: The study found that “mental state decreased” after standing for a prolonged period and caused “sustained attention reaction time” to deteriorate. On the plus side, “creative problem solving improved.” The researchers conclude that “prolonged standing should be undertaken with caution.”
These findings reinforce a much larger survey of standers from 2016 that found that side effects of standing could include “an increase in back pain or varicose veins or being more tired at the end of the day.”