Our Blog
Exercise is Good for the Heart
Even a single workout could be good for the heart. That’s the conclusion of a fascinating new study in mice that found that 30 minutes on a treadmill affects gene activity within cardiac cells in ways that, over the long haul, could slow the aging of the animals’ hearts.
Although the study involved mice, the results may help to explain just how, at a cellular level, exercise improves heart health in people as well.
There’s no question that, in general, physical activity is good for hearts. Many studies have found that people who regularly exercise are much less likely to develop or die from cardiac disease than people who are sedentary.
Exercise is known to improve our blood pressure, pulse rate and cholesterol profiles, all of which are associated with better cardiac health.
Every 3 minutes in the UK someone is struck by a heart attack - www.bhf.org.uk
Standing increases the average persons heart beat by 10 beats a minute which improves health and increases brain function.
Just another great reason to get using a standing desk on a daily basis.
More Than 20 Million Briton's Physically Inactive
More than 20 million people in the UK are physically inactive, according to a report by the British Heart Foundation.
The charity warns that inactivity increases the risk of heart disease and costs the NHS around £1.2bn each year.
Harriet Mulvaney experienced a heart attack at 44 and decided to make changes to her lifestyle. "Looking back on it now I would say I was very inactive. I thought I was active but actually I think I was just busy," she says.
Women are 36% more likely than men to be classified as physically inactive - 11.8 million women compared with 8.3 million men.
The report defines "inactive" as not achieving the government guidelines for physical activity of 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity a week and strength activities on at least two days a week.
Harriet had a busy life as an HR consultant, driving an hour to work and then sitting at a desk for eight to 10 hours a day.
She would then be busy with family life but didn't make time for activity or exercise.
"I just thought it was one of those things I'd get to in another point in time," she says.
The BHF analysis found that the average man in the UK spends a fifth of his lifetime sitting - equivalent to 78 days a year. For women, it is around 74 days a year.
Another reason to consider a standing desk as a superb way to improve your health whilst you're working - it's a no-brainer!
Improve Pupil Attainment by Improving Pupil Health
Today we were invited to attend Yorkshire Sport Foundation's conference on improving pupil attainment by improving pupil health...sounds sense.
Activity experts from UK Universities Leeds Beckett and Loughborough were some of the keynote speakers.
2 points which made real impact were...
1: For any learning environment to be effective the brain needs to be stimulated but when we sit down the blood supply slows down impeding cognitive performance. Increase the blood supply by moving (the heart rate increases) and so does the brains performance. ..concentration,focus and behaviour levels increase and improve.
Studies tell us that the average student will lose classroom attention after around 20 minutes. Most lessons last around 45 minutes!
2: Studies show us that children are inactive in 2 key areas - at home in the evening and in the classroom. On average we make kids sit down for 4.5 hours every school day. It therefore makes total sense to look to include ways we can make the classroom sensibly active - standing desks are one of the workable solutions.
Today's kids are the least active in history - www.designedtomove.org
It was a great day and we'll be blogging more about the problems, solutions and impact over the coming days.
Active Improves Concentration in the Classroom
In the summer of 2015 a researcher from Oxford University worked with pupils from Year 5 at Christ the King Primary School in Reading (UK) to investigate the effect of PE and activity on concentration levels in the classroom.
There is a well known and established link between playtime and subsequent levels of concentration. Briefly, researchers have shown that if children have an active playtime they concentrate better in their next lesson. When Christ the King were approached to take part in this study they were interested to see if there were any implications for the frequency, the pattern and the nature of both playtimes and PE lessons. If having more play and PE, or more active play and PE, could be shown to help children do better in class then they might change daily routines and methods.
In this study a number of the children were asked to wear electronic devices to measure their activity throughout the day. The researcher spent two weeks in the classroom observing the children; she watched them working both before and after breaks and PE; she also asked both the children themselves and their teacher about their work.
This was only a small scale study, but the conclusion was clear that PE and activity does have a beneficial effect on concentration.
A bit more more evidence about how activity in learning environments has a positive impact and how EIGER Junior standing desks can play a part.
Exercise keeps the mind sharp in over-50s
Physical activity has long been known to reduce the risk of a number of diseases, including type-2 diabetes and some cancers, and it is thought to play a role in warding off the brain's natural decline as we enter middle age.
Dr Justin Varney, lead for adult health and wellbeing at Public Health England, has said any physical activity was good for brain and body.
"Whilst every 10 minutes of exercise provides some benefit, doing 150 minutes a week cuts the chances of depression and dementia by a third, and boosts mental health at any age."
Of course included in that is standing more and sitting less. Using a standing desk increases the heart rate and therefore blood flow to the brain. This results in more oxygen.
The UK is now one of the world's most inactive countries in the world...let's start the change and become more every day active!
Youth Sport Trust Meeting
Today we had a fantastic meeting with The Youth Sport Trust in the Entrepreneurial Spark Business Hub in central Manchester. It is a UK national charity creating solutions that improve health, attendance and academic achievement in primary and secondary schools for young people from 18 months to 18 years.
In 2016 The Youth Sport Trust gave…
- 834,083 young people direct opportunities to participate in high quality and inclusive PE and sport.
- 129,553 young people training opportunities which included coaching, officiating and volunteering.
- 34,446 members of the school workforce were given continuous professional development training.
We talked and agreed how our EIGER Junior Standing Desks can play an important part to both improving the academic classroom environment whilst increasing significantly students every day activity levels.
Children are inactive in classroom environments for around 4.5 hours every school day and then spend up to a further 7 hours inactive in front of some form of personal device. According to Nike's Designed to Move campaign, today's children are the first generation on course to have a life expectancy 5 years less than their parents because of inactivity.
With the help of The Youth Sport Trust and our EIGER Junior Standing Desks we aim to make the UK's classrooms and children, healthier and more productive.
Lyrca Not Needed...
The trouble with health warnings – the latest of which comes from the British Heart Foundation, suggesting that 20 million UK adults are risking an early death because of inactivity– is that they seem so abstract. How do you go from knowing you should exercise more, to actually doing it? Especially when you still have flashbacks to school sports day humiliation, or worry that the solitary pair of shorts in your wardrobe may no longer fit.
Here's 2 great ideas...
1: Walk more! Just get off your bum and on your feet. It sounds obvious, but research shows that walking can reduce the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke and more. As soon as it becomes habitual, you won’t even consider it as exercise – just try and do at least 30 minutes a day. Get off the bus a stop early!
2: Stand more! Or look at it another way - sit less! We're a nation of habitual sitters. From the day we first went to school we were told to sit down within 5 minutes and it became a lifetime habit. If low level activity (standing) is proven to be a significant part of the every day active solution that most of us can do more of, why don't we!
A standing desk is the nearest thing you can put in your workplace to a piece of gym equipment. You don't need any lycra or a pair of trainers - just you!
MiniJack Arriving Soon!
Retrofit sit-stand desk solutions are a great success primarily for 2 reasons. Firstly they remove the upheaval of "out with the old and in with the new". Second, they cost less. We're adding to our range by the introducing MiniJack.
MiniJack sits on top of your existing desk and allows you to go from sit to stand and back again with its effortless height adjustable mechanism.
It has both a keyboard and monitor platform to keep you ergonomically correct at sit or stand positions.
MiniJack will start at £215.00 + VAT and be available on our website from around late April.