It has been a long time coming, but I spend an enormous amount of time computing, and being seated has begun to take its toll on me. A few months ago I read an article over at Lifehacker about the benefits of standing up. It made a lot of sense to me. The human body is not designed to be overly sedentary. Let’s face it, we really shouldn’t be seated for more than a few hours per day.
So, I set about making a change. I found an IkeaHacker article that seemed attractive, and just while I was about to make the trek over there to find a solution, I realized I could more easily pull this off with a series of cinder blocks from Home Depot. It’s not very elegant, but HD is literally 3minutes from here, and for dirt cheap I could figure out if I enjoyed standing, plus other details such as exactly how high I wanted the table top.
It took a few hours to deconstruct everything, clean, and then rebuild. I’m definitely liking it so far. The first few days felt like those leg burners at the beginning of the ski season, but I can already feel that discomfort wearing off. I did go ahead and pick up a stool from a nice lady on Craigslist because, just as you shouldn’t be seated all day, you needn’t be standing either. For now I’m having to rest every couple of hours. I suspect that might extend to 3 or 4 once I’m better conditioned. I felt it also necessary to grab a soft mat to stand on. Carpet alone is insufficient.
One other tweak I’m considering is raising my monitors another 6inches or so. I’m still looking down on them by approximately 15degrees when staring at their center, and ultimately that zone should be at eye level. I might be agreeable towards a wall mount at some point if I can find the right hardware to make it happen. As for table height, I’m six feet tall and finding that 44inches is perfect in terms of keeping my elbows at right angles while typing.
