by Nina

“Sitting too much may increase the risk of dying prematurely, while replacing sitting time with just standing or moderate physical activity could counteract the effect.” —Nicholas Bakalar, New York Times

I’m standing up as I write this. Because I’m working on both a book and the blog this year and my back has been rather unhappy about it, I decided to splurge on one of those sit-stand desks that I can raise and lower with the touch of a button. And just in time apparently. Because this little article in the New York Times Sitting Increases the Risk of Dying Early made me realize that while I’d kind of been thinking that all my walks and yoga sessions were counteracting the hours I spent sitting at my desk, according to the latest research, that’s not true:

“The association between time spent sitting and mortality has been found in other studies, and the link persists even after accounting for other physical exercise.”

And I’ve now concluded that although we and other yoga teachers have been encouraging people to do “office yoga” for some time now, maybe some of those chair stretches are not the right thing for you to be doing. So it’s time for us all to get serious about breaking up those hours of sitting with “standing” breaks! The researcher quoted in the article recommended, well, just standing up.

“Stand up, and go have a drink of water instead of keeping the water bottle at your desk. Or just stand up every so often. Standing alone increases your energy expenditure.”

But I think we can do better than that. (I mean, just standing up is kind of boring so you might as well do some stretching and/or strengthening while you’re at it.) Now I work at home so I not only can use the desk of my choice but I can also take housework breaks, which mean getting up and going downstairs to do dishes, put in a load of laundry, or sweep the kitchen. (I get lots of thinking done during those breaks, as well as a relief from sitting.) However, I used to work in an office—and even in a cubicle!—so I know that’s a bit more challenging. But there are many different kinds of standing poses can you do in your office clothes in a small space

For starters, we just happen to have this little sequence Featured Sequence: Opening Tight Shoulders that—although it was designed to open tight shoulders—would work really well in an office. How about doing one pose in the sequence for each short break? At the end of the day, you’ll have completed the whole thing. After a few weeks, your shoulders are going to start feeling pretty good! (If you don’t have a wall, try the Half Downward-Facing Dog pose with your hands on your desk. And if you don’t have a doorknob, try the Cobra holding on to the edge of your desk.) Ram’s post Yoga in Skies with poses you can do at the back of the airplane has some similar ideas as does Yoga for Traveling. And I’m sure we’ve all realized by now that Tree pose can be done any time, anywhere. Finally, I bet you can come up with some of your own!

Baxter sets a timer to remind him to take breaks from writing. I just get up every time I complete a little something like a blog post or a section of the book. 

If you give this a try, let me know how it goes!

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