Standing Desk

When my youngest son was still in school he was a handful. He was always in trouble, and he ended up being home schooled. He had a very severe form of ADHD, and he could never be still for even a moment. He would always complain of being stiff in his seat, and he would become distracted by even the most minor things. We tried out therapy, medication, and even punishment. Surprisingly, the only thing that worked was something that I never even knew could make a difference!

One of my close friends gave us her Safco AlphaBetter Standing Desk that she no longer needed. A standing desk is similar to a regular desk, but you stand on foot rails and lean on the desk instead of sitting down. The Safco AlphaBetter Standing Desk came in a beautiful shade of black with a beige work place. The desk is adjustable, so my son could also sit down in it if he needed to.

The Safco AlphaBetter Standing Desk is built similar to any other desk, but it is loaded with extra features. It has a rather large workspace with three pencil holding slots instead of the regular one. Under the workspace is a steel book box like under most standard desks, but there is also an additional shelf under it for even more storage. The height of the dusk will adjust from as low as twenty-six inches to as high as forty-two inches. All of these things are great, but the real ingenuity of the Safco AlphaBetter Standing Desk is the foot rail.

The foot rail is what solved all of my son's problems. Whenever he would work he would always have to get up and move randomly. The foot rail was designed in mind for the child using the desk to be able to sway their legs back and forth. He is always standing up, and whenever he gets excited he will just swing his legs back and forth until it goes away. He can still work while this happens, and he is getting so much more down.

I have fallen in love with standing desks, but they will remain unknown to many people who could really use the help. I was looking into purchasing another one incase the current one would break in the future, and the price just shocked me. The price was around $200 for just a desk! I absolutely adore this product, but if I didn't know how beneficial it would be before I got one for free I definitely wouldn't have put down that much for a potential solution. I definitely recommend this product for anybody that has a home schooled student and enough money to put down.

As someone who spends most of my time sitting in front of a desk at work, I find that lack of exercise is a big problem for me. I've been slowly gaining weight over the past few months, constantly feel tired, and my back occasionally hurts from my poor posture that I can't seem to correct. Without wanting to spend too much money on ergonomic chairs, I started thinking of other solutions. But it turns out the answer is simpler than I expected.

Standing at your desk is a great way to solve many of the problems I mentioned earlier. It's hard to slouch while standing, and it's also surprisingly hard to feel sluggish while standing. It turns out that sitting with poor posture for extended periods of time isn't just bad for your back, but the levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol in the body increase when you sit too long. This leads to decreased metabolism, and you guessed it... increased weight gain!

By standing at your desk, you burn more calories, are able to remain more alert and awake, and can minimize back pain over time. However, from my personal experience, standing too long has caused my feet to start hurting. Hopefully this is just because I'm not used to standing, because otherwise I'll have to look into comfortable shoes to wear while standing.

For now, I've just elevated my existing desk (nothing more than a fold-up table) on some boxes. Until I buy a real standing desk, this crude setup should do just fine. One thing I do differently now is I tend to move around a lot while standing, which I'm sure helps me to burn more calories. I no longer have back aches, but I do have to lie down once in a while to rest my poor feet.

For those of you looking to use your own standing desks, I highly recommend making the switch over. It won't be an easy transition, but definitely will be a worthwhile one for your health. If you're someone who can go days at a time without any exercise like me, forcing yourself to develop these healthier habits can help turn around the degrading health we're bound to experience as we get older.