Standing desk tips: how long to stand and how to set it up

The best way to use a standing desk is to switch between sitting and standing through the day, not to stand from nine to six. Start with short standing spells of 15 to 30 minutes, two or three times a day, and add a little each week. Set the desk so your elbows bend at about a right angle when you type, make sure the screen rises with the desk, and wear shoes you could walk in.

The part most people get wrong is the simplest one: actually changing position. A standing desk that stays at sitting height all week is just a desk with a motor. Below is why switching matters more than standing, how to set the heights, what to do about your feet, and how to make the switch happen without having to remember it.

Why alternating beats standing all day

Standing desks caught on as a fix for sitting too long, and long, unbroken sitting does have a poor record. Research links many hours in a chair with stiffness, low energy and, over years, worse health, as what sitting all day does explains. But the answer is not to trade one fixed position for another.

People whose jobs keep them on their feet all day, in shops, kitchens and factories, often report sore feet, aching legs and lower back trouble. Standing still is hard work in its own way: your leg muscles hold you up without moving much, and blood tends to collect in the lower legs.

What helps most is change. Sit for a while, stand for a while, move in between. Ergonomists like to say that the best posture is the next one. Standing burns a little more energy than sitting, but not enough to count as exercise, so think of the desk as a way to change position often, not as a workout.

One pattern you may see quoted is 20-8-2: sit for 20 minutes, stand for 8, then move for 2. It is usually credited to Alan Hedge, an ergonomics researcher at Cornell University. Treat it as a rough shape for each half hour rather than a rule. The useful part is that moving is in there at all.

How long to stand when you're starting out

If you have sat at a desk for years, your feet and legs are not used to holding you up for long. Going straight to a whole morning on your feet is how people end up with sore heels and a desk that never moves again.

A gentler start:

1. The first week. Stand for 15 to 30 minutes at a time, two or three times a day. Pick easy moments, like clearing email or taking a call.
2. The weeks after. Add a few minutes to each spell, or add one more spell, as long as your feet and back feel fine at the end of the day.
3. Settle where it feels good. Some people end up standing for a good part of the day, some for an hour in total. There is no number you need to hit.

Change position when you start to feel it, not after it hurts. Constant weight shifting, leaning on the desk with your forearms, locked knees and a dull ache low in the back all mean it's time to sit for a while.

Set the heights for standing, not just for sitting

A standing position needs setting up as carefully as a sitting one. Most standing desk mistakes are the usual sitting mistakes, moved up a level.

Desk height

Stand up straight with your shoulders relaxed and your arms by your sides, then bend your elbows to about a right angle. The keyboard belongs at about that height, or a touch below, so your forearms are roughly level and your wrists stay straight. If you shrug to type, the desk is too high. If you hunch, it's too low. People often set it higher than they need, because standing height feels like it should be tall.

Screen height and distance

The top of the screen should be at or a little below eye level, about an arm's length away, so you look slightly down at it. A display that sits on the desktop, or on a monitor arm clamped to it, rises with the desk, so you set it once. A display on a separate stand, a shelf or the old desk behind you does not, and you'll be looking down at it every time you stand.

If you work on a MacBook

A laptop on a standing desk has the same problem as a laptop anywhere: the screen and keyboard are attached, so getting one right puts the other wrong. Type on it directly and the screen sits far below your eyes. A laptop stand with a separate keyboard and mouse or trackpad fixes this standing as well as sitting, and the guide to good posture with a MacBook walks through the setups.

Save both heights

If your desk has memory buttons, save a sitting height and a standing height so switching takes one press. On a manual desk, put a strip of tape on the leg at each height. Every bit of friction you remove makes switching more likely. When you sit back down, check the chair too: feet flat, desk back at elbow height.

Shoes, mats and what to do with your feet

Your feet take the load, so give them some help.

• Wear supportive shoes. Shoes with some cushioning, the kind you could walk in all afternoon, beat socks on a hard floor, high heels or flat slippers. At home it is tempting to stand barefoot on wood or tile, and most people find it gets uncomfortable quickly.
• Try an anti-fatigue mat. A cushioned mat makes standing more comfortable for many people, especially on hard floors. Pick one firm enough that you don't sink into it, with beveled edges you won't catch a toe on, and slide it away when you sit so the chair doesn't roll over it.
• Keep moving a little. Shift your weight, step side to side, rise onto your toes now and then. Standing completely still is the tiring part.
• Prop a foot. A low footrest, a sturdy box or a rail lets you rest one foot and then the other, which takes some load off the lower back.
• Keep your knees soft. Locked knees and all your weight on one hip feel fine for ten minutes and not for forty.

Remembering to switch

This is where most standing desks fail. You stand for the first hour of the morning, sit down for a meeting, and look up at four o'clock having never stood again. Like every other break habit, switching slips away exactly when you're most absorbed.

Some cues that help:

• Stand for calls. Calls are natural standing time, and you aren't typing, so the keyboard height matters less.
• Switch at the seams of the day. Tie the change to things that happen anyway: a meeting ending, starting a new task, coming back from lunch.
• Split the work by kind. Long writing and fiddly detail are often easier sitting. Email, reading and review are easy standing.
• Move between positions. Each switch is a chance to refill your water or walk to the window before you settle again.
• Let something else keep count. A plain timer works for a while, until it starts to feel like an alarm and gets switched off.

That last one is where Bizzy comes in. Bizzy is one of the Movement characters in Notchpals, a bumblebee who is sure the two of you are the hardest-working team around. With Bizzy in your crew, a Stand up visit drops out of the notch once you have worked at the Mac for 55 minutes straight, any time between 8 AM and 10 PM.

BizzyStand up! Buzz around a bit! Okay, you can't buzz. Walk-buzz! Wheee!

Notchpals can't see your desk, so it has no idea whether you are sitting or standing. It only knows how long you have been working at the keyboard and mouse, and it trusts your Done. On a standing desk that turns out to be handy: treat every visit as a cue to change position, whichever one you're in. Sitting, stand up. Standing, sit down, or walk a lap first. If you're mid-sentence, Later gives you 20 minutes before Bizzy asks once more.

Bizzy also brings the odd stretch, but stretches share one modest daily allowance with every other repeating reminder in your crew, so they never pile up. For the wider question of how often to get up at all, see how often to get up from your desk.

The short version

• Alternate. Sitting all day and standing all day both wear on you.
• Start with 15 to 30 minutes of standing a few times a day and build slowly.
• Elbows at a right angle, wrists straight, top of the screen at or just below eye level, in both positions.
• Supportive shoes, a mat on hard floors, and a little movement while you stand.
• Make switching automatic: tie it to calls and the edges of tasks, save the heights, and let a reminder keep count.