How to Create Your Own Active Workstation

Five years ago, we were all about the standing workstation. Sitting kills, we said. It’s the new smoking. So we should do the opposite—stand all day long. Right? It turns out that standing all day isn’t much better. The real issue is lack of movement. When we sit or stand all day long in the same position, our body is learning to be immobile. Children can’t sit still because they haven’t had the natural human need to move beaten out of them yet. Adults never feel like moving because we’ve grown accustomed to never doing it. Since we spend at least a third of our lives at work, our workstation must enable and even encourage movement.

How do we do it? What do we need?

The Desk

You don’t have to stand all day. I don’t even recommend you stand in the same place all day. But you should have the option, so first on your list is a solid (or precarious, depending on your tolerance) standing workstation set-up.

IKEA has some good sit-stand desk options. They aren’t cheap, though.

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