Is Your Desk Chair Trying to Murder You?

Students spend a lot of time sitting down.

From lectures to seminars, the library to your bedroom desk, chairs are almost a second home for students (beyond their beds obviously), and as a result you might be left feeling a little sore.

Your time in Aberystwyth may boost your career in the future, but all this time spent in uncomfortable chairs might also force you into a life of pain and an early grave.

Given this, here are some reasons why you should dump your desk chair and ask the library to do the same:

It sounds ridiculous but your desk chair might kill you

Various research reports prove that sitting hunched over a desk for more than 6 hours a day directly causes diabetes, heart and blood vessel diseases, and cancer. As if that’s not bad enough, spending that long sat down also means your chances of an early death increase by 40% compared to if you spend less than 3 hours a day at your desk.

If you are heading for an office job after graduation, your desk chair could be your worst enemy!

This chair is killing this man…and he doesn’t even realise it

You’ll get fatter by the minute

Heads up Weight Watchers! Studying while standing increases fat burn by up to one fourth compared to sitting down.

Amazingly, if you do an intense workout at the gym 3 times a week, you won’t feel the benefits if you spend the rest of the day sat down.

This is because when you sit you are in a constant dormant state: the enzymes that break down fat drop by 90% and you burn just one calorie per hour.

So eating a crisp packet or donut before sitting down to do some uni work might not be the most brilliant decision.

Churchill used a standing desk and he defeated Hitler!

While Da Vinci used a standing desk to paint and design many of his works, Winston Churchill refused to work in any way other than on his feet.

Heads up smokers of any kind! Churchill smoked 10 cigars a day, led the country through a war, yet he still managed to live for 90 years.

Studying in Hugh Owen could be much more efficient and healthier if the uni invested in standing desks. Not only would you feel less sleepy, but your energy levels would be constant, and you’d be more focused on your reading than on daydreaming.

Your opinions

– “Since I stopped working in a cafe a month ago and only focused on my studies, I have gained weight and developed some serious back pain.”

– “I started uni this year and I’ve never felt so unenergized. It’s just so tempting to lay my head on the desk and have a nap.”

–  “While my reading pace has been sluggish at best, now that I have started to do school work on my feet there is no way I’m going back to sitting all day. I rarely zone out anymore or have to read a sentence more than once.”

– “Standing desks are a good and healthy idea, but at the end of the day we will sit down anyway, let’s be honest.”

We try to build a standing desk of our own…

How to start

To put this idea into use you don’t have to buy a standing desk (no need to kill your bank account for the sake of your health!)

All you need to do is channel your inner McGyver and bring your laptop to a higher level. Ideally, you have to find a height that will not cause any back pains and also give yourself time to get used to it.

I started by standing up just half an hour at a time while studying and sitting for the next half. If this doesn’t work for you though, even standing up every half an hour activates your leg muscles so they won’t shrink completely.

So stop wasting your time by dozing off while reading, get off your bum, and focus! You could have finished work and been at the beach a long time ago…