Can Your Desk Keep You Healthy ?

Think about the desktop of your favorite personal computer. It came from the factory one way – popular icons splayed atop the menu bar, vivid images of far-off landmarks shuffling across as your screensaver, Microsoft’s Everybody Loves Blue as the stock color for every application and window you open.

If there’s one thing the 21st century office worker needs to be, it’s flexible. The traditional 9-to-5 is a dying breed in corporate America, replaced by employees working non-traditional hours, working remotely, working via mobile devices, and bringing their own devices (commonly known as BYOD) to enhance their efficiency.

To complement the modern worker, many firms have switched the traditional cubicle approach into an open format complete with a work space that is as flexible as the person occupying it. Convertible desks allow employees to transition seamlessly between sitting and standing, and come with a host of different features and designs to allow each employee to customize the organization and layout of their work space to their own specifications.

Convertible desks come in all shapes and sizes. Some are designed to allow use of two computers – normally a desktop and a laptop – at the same time while others foster space for a pair of monitors to sit side-by-side. With more and more workers concerned with their health, particularly the poor circulation that can occur from sitting in one spot for several hours a day, desks that can be adjusted to becoming a standing work station are a hot commodity.

So, what are the main benefits of using a convertible desk in your work environment? Here’s a breakdown of some of the most surefire ways that a convertible desk can improve your quality of life while also improving your quality of work.

1. Use more energy, build more strength: The average worker has virtually no time to themselves during the workweek between the actual job, the commute to and from the office, and family requirements. This leaves little time for exercising of any sort, but that deficit can be somewhat filled by standing rather than sitting. According to the Mayo Clinic, just two hours of standing a day burns 340 calories. Standing also reduces pressure on your lower intervertebral discs, which lessens the risk of injuring them.

2. Increased productivity: How many among us have ever had 10 different browser windows open at the same time in order to input data from one column into another? Or printed out a long table of data, then been forced to hold it up close to our face in order to transcribe the numbers into a spreadsheet? Those days are over thanks to a convertible desk’s ability to support two monitors at the same time. Compare, contrast, copy, and correlate data seamlessly using nothing more than the back-and-forth movement of your eyes.

3. Increased confidence: Your cold-calling a new client. What feels better? Hunched over your computer in a decades-old office chair or standing tall and having the ability to walk around and express your ideas with body language? The second choice is the no-brainer. We put less pressure on our diaphragm when we stand, allowing our words to come across clearer. And if the person on the other end can’t understand you, how likely are they to buy from you? Plug in your hands-free device and you’re suddenly a standing, walking sales force rather than a sedentary, sluggish drone on the phone.

Convertible desks may become the new standard of the modern workplace. They offer multiple solutions to multiple problems by being flexible and adaptable solutions.

Braver Technology Solutions LLC