Standing desks have been proposed as remedies for the many maladies associated with excessive sitting. However, it is not sitting per se but sedentary activity that is a health risk. Sitting is clearly a sedentary activity, but interestingly so is is standing, which rarely involves enough energy expenditure to exceed the threshold of sedentariness. While it has been found that the use of sit-stand desks does decrease sitting, energy expenditure at standing desks is comparable to that at seated desks. Based on what we know at this time, the impact of standing desks on health outcomes appears to be inconsequential.1
The Stroop effect describes “the delay in reaction time between congruent and incongruent stimuli.” This effect is exemplified in the above task, where naming the text color of a word takes longer and is frequently less accurate when the text color does not match the printed word.3
Researchers investigated differences in the Stroop effect in young, healthy adults while they were sitting versus standing. The results showed no difference in the Stroop effect when sitting or standing, meaning that it is unlikely for either position to have “detrimental effects on selective attention and cognitive control.”4 In other words, executive function does not appear to be affected whether an individual sits or stands.
I encourage readers to read the referenced research and source material for themselves.
