Chairless

There have been articles written about how sitting too long shortens your life. Adding to that, my office is much smaller then I need. So today I did my work standing up after raising the monitor and keyboard to standing level.

Taking the chair out of my office seemed to be a good idea. It lost the ability to adjust its height long ago. In addition, the back seems to lean back more and more over time. It has done nothing for my posture. Last night I tossed the chair out along with other items that were cluttering my office.

After one day, I can't say that I'm too pleased. My feet hurt. They had started hurting early as I worked barefoot. The floor is concrete. I put on some comfortable sandals, which helped most of the day.

Unfortunately, as the day progressed, even the sandals could not prevent my feet from hurting. Not only that. My calves are sore too. I finally came to the couch and picked up my feet because my upper back started getting sore too. I think I am unaccustomed to not slouching for so long.

The sore feet, that's natural for standing for prolonged periods. The sore leg muscles and shoulders should improve with time as the muscles strengthen.

The biggest difference between today's end of day and previous days is that I feel physically tired, not just drained of energy as happens when sitting all day. And despite the physical exhaustion, I don't particularly feel drained of energy.

I think, if standing all day doesn't improve too much, I may consider part-timing on the floor. Sitting on the floor at least has some benefit of stretching your legs and other muscles. Being less comfortable, you are likely to shift sitting positions frequently to rotate the discomfort. It may even strengthen core muscles; but we won't know until sitting on the floor a while.