Last week I touched on the benefits of standing at your desk. To expand on that prospect, it seems that sitting has been recognised as the new health hazard. It has even been stated that sitting is the ‘new smoking’ in terms of health hazards. It is statistically associated with numerous health issues, including death from cardiovascular disease and cancer.

In the light of the sitting research and sit-less campaigns, health-minded people have been super-motivated to get out of their chairs and onto physio balls, standing workstations and treadmill desks.

However, sitting itself may not be the problem. It is the repetitive use of a single position that makes us literally become ill in a litany of ways. Your muscles will adapt to repetitive positioning by changing their cellular make-up which, in turn, leads to a reduced joint range of motion. This muscle-and-joint stiffness can lead to rigidity of the arterial walls within these muscles.

The good news is that because we have all been sitting the same way for decades, changing our position (standing more) can improve our health, as can moving intermittently throughout the day.

The way you have been sitting throughout your life has changed the tiny parts that make up your structure, like the shape and density of your bones, the length of your muscles and tendons and the resting tension in your connective tissues.

This adaptation on a deeper cellular level to sitting means that reaping the benefits of not sitting so much requires more than just swapping one static position for another. It requires an entire overhaul of the way you think about, and move, your body.

However, standing is not the total answer to our joint and health issues.  Standing is subjective in itself. Every way of standing is not equal, some ways will create more positive adaptations. Think about your posture when you stand, so many people have a bad posture for a multitude of reasons; they are tall and tend to stoop, in women they have heavy breasts and so lean slightly due to the weight, some have a tendency to lean to one side, thereby putting more strain on one hip and bone structure.

Arteries are arranged specifically to maximise pressure gradients and to keep blood flowing smoothly. This all changes with posture. Prolonged alterations in arterial geometry can change the way blood flows, creating scenarios where the loads on the vessel wall induce cellular changes that cause them to shift from being protective against plaque formation to promoting plaque formation.

Sitting itself may not be the problem. It is the repetitive use of a single position that makes us literally become ill in a litany of ways

For decades, researchers have been trying to work out the best way to organise the body for optimal performance at the office. The underlying flaw in much of the research is that it fails to highlight the use of a single position as the problem. Our quest to find an optimal position for stillness will always be frustrated by the problems inherent with a lack of movement.

We still need to sit at our desks to work, sit to commute and sit to eat. The key is to working out how to use the greater ranges of motion to prevent our muscles and other body tissues form atrophying due to movement deficits.

The key to finding health through an alternative workstation is to make sure your set-up is as fluid as possible. The more time you spend at a ‘fixed’ station, the closer you will be to sitting all day. Standing is fine after many years of sitting, but with no refreshment of your mechanosensors your body will simply begin a new set of adaptations to your new static position. Adaptations do not necessarily equal improvements.

So, if you sit cross-legged in your chair as you are reading this, you will be improving your body, because you are loading different parts. Try one ankle over your opposite knee. After a few minutes, switch to the other. I believe this sort of movement is why those who practise yoga regularly are healthier, so that is something to consider if you are a static person.

Apparently there are stand-up kits available to move your workstation to a higher place so you have to stand up to operate them. I just worked from the breakfast bar in the kitchen!

Most upper body parts are under-loaded and under-utilised, in comparison to the legs. The shoulder’s range of motions is seriously underused. Apparently, there is a new keyboard which is called a ‘separated keyboard’, which allows your hands to work at a greater distance apart.

When you move your hands apart, the bones in your shoulder joint have to change position, which is a good thing for the muscles, blood vessels and nerves in there.

While I have never seen one in action, apparently the treadmill desks keep you moving while working. In one study, 18 subjects were given a text and e-mails to read while they either sat or walked at a treadmill desk. Ten minutes later, everyone was given a quiz on what they had read. Those who were walking answered correctly a greater percentage of the time (Comput.Human Behav., 2015).

I will write more about this and other options to our workstations next week. In the meantime, for those who write to me, please note my new e-mail address; the old one has been put out of action for the past six weeks.

kathrynmborg@yahoo.com