This post was originally published on Well + Good
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For the past few years, standing desks have been all the rage. With the shift to remote work, chances are you either know someone who has one, you have one yourself, or you’ve been thinking about hitting the “add to cart” button.
This WFH staple ensures you don’t spend the majority of your day sitting—which we’ve heard a million times can lead to conditions like poor heart health down the line. Or so we thought.
A new study published yesterday in The International Journal of Epidemiology suggests standing desks don’t actually reduce your risk of diseases like stroke and heart failure.
A closer look at the new study
The study included over 80,000 healthy adults from the UK. For two years, participants wore wrist accelerometers that recorded how much time they spent sitting and standing.
When researchers assessed the data and followed up with them over a six-year period, they found sitting for more than 10 hours a day was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. More surprising? Standing more (compared with sitting) doesn’t reduce the risk of heart conditions like heart disease, stroke, and heart failure. Additionally, standing more could actually increase your risk of varicose veins (enlarged veins) and deep vein thrombosis (a blood clot in your veins).
Standing more doesn’t reduce the risk of conditions like heart disease, stroke, and heart failure.
More specifically, for every 30 minutes spent standing beyond two hours, the risk of these health issues increased by 11 percent. (It’s worth noting that study participants didn’t *specifically* use standing desks to measure the health affects of increased standing.)
There are a couple of caveats to keep in mind. First, this is an observational study, which means it’s showing correlation—not causation. In other words, it found a connection between standing too much and an increased risk of poor heart health. This doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to develop a heart condition in the future if you stand too much.
Additionally, this study draws from UK Biobank data. The UK Biobank is a database and research resource that stores the medical and genetic info of 500,000 UK participants for research just like this study. However, UK Biobank volunteers have no previous medical issues and aren’t an accurate representation of the majority of people, according to a 2017 American Journal of Epidemiology article.
The bottom line
“The key takeaway is that standing for too long will not offset an otherwise sedentary lifestyle and could be risky for some people in terms of circulatory health,” said Matthew Ahmadi, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Sydney and lead study author, in a press release.
Instead of standing for a majority of your day, Ahmadi and his fellow researchers suggest you should instead schedule regular movement throughout the day.
“Take regular breaks, walk around, go for a walking meeting, use the stairs, take regular breaks when driving long distances, or use that lunch hour to get away from the desk and do some movement,” Ahmadi said.
These are commonly referred to as “exercise breaks” or “exercise snacks.” You could even “microdose” fitness by taking quick stretch breaks, doing short cardio bursts, busting out a few squats while you wait for your coffee to brew, or even completing some household chores (because cleaning the bathroom is a serious workout!).
If you have a bit more time in your day, a 2024 study in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity found that about six minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise or 30 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise per day could help lower your risk of heart disease—even if you’re largely sedentary 11 hours a day or more.
FYI: Vigorous exercise is anything that’s 70 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate and moderate exercise is anything that gets you to 50 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). You can find an estimate of your maximum heart rate by subtracting 220 from your age, per the AHA.
The takeaway? Don’t panic if you have a desk job that requires a ton of sitting. But don’t throw your standing desk to the curb, either. As long as you get up and move a bit throughout your day, you can be sure you’re doing great things for your overall health.