The gratuitous “famous people do it, so should you” blog post!

There is a significant contingent of recognizable names who were dedicated to working at standing desks, including: Benjamin Franklin, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Winston Churchill, Leonardo da Vinci, and Donald Rumsfeld.

There’s a group of names you don’t get to put together very often.

For some great minds, standing was not enough and they needed walking as a creative mechanism. Friedrich Nietzsche famously said, “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.”

Of course in the modern world, it just doesn’t fly with the boss to say that you are going to take a walk in the park for the rest of the afternoon (“No, really, it’s great for productivity!”). Luckily we have the treadmill desk option, and some famous folks have caught onto it, including - believe it or not - Jimmy Kimmel. Check out this picture of him that recently was featured on the Work While Walking Blog:

Looks like he’s got the right footwear.

We are making a wishlist of famous people we want to convert to Rebel Desk users. Who would you add?

At Rebel Desk, we envision a future in which everyone has the option to sit, stand, or walk while working. Hopefully we are more accurate in our prediction than this one from 1961:

Desk of the Future

Keeping track of the latest health and fitness recommendations can be frustrating.

One week it is: Do this. Do that.

The next week it is: Don’t do this. Don’t do that.

I read an article today about how endurance running can increase your chance of dying from a heart condition!

Deepak Chopra hit on this theme in a recent HuffPost column (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/spanish-study-mediterranean-diet_b_3342278.html)

But don’t throw up your hands and give in to the Oreos that you stashed in your cupboard! As Chopra observes, we actually know what leads to health and well being. While we might wish there was a magic cleanse, one amazing workout, or a pill from which we could whip up a recipe for healthiness, the ingredient list in fact is rather simple. One of the key ingredients to a healthy and more energetic life is moving. And I don’t mean running a couple miles a day. Just not sitting all day.

• “It has long been known that a sedentary lifestyle increases the risk of many lifestyle disorders, but only a small percentage of people regularly exercise. So it’s good news that just moving your body throughout the day, doing as little as walking around every hour, taking the stairs, and stretching, delivers some of the fundamental benefits of exercise. The more you exercise, the greater the benefits, yet the widest health gap is between those who don’t move at all and those who bother to do the minimum.”

Combine a routine of steady movement with healthy food and you are well on your way to feeling great and living longer.

At Rebel Desk our mantra is: Sitting sucks. Stand up. Live better. A new study suggests we should add on “Smile more.”

A fascinating study recently covered by HuffPost reveals that slouching forward in a chair (something that is hard to avoid after you’ve been sitting for hours on end) can “send ‘sad’ signals to our brain, darkening our mood.” And it not only is you who may be brought down in the dumps by your slouching. The study showed that “[s]imply observing someone else carrying out those motions or silently imagining them can be enough to trigger [a] heightened feeling” of sadness.

The good news, however, is that acting out certain “happy” movements such as jumping, skipping, or raising your arms in the air can lift spirits, and put you and others in a better mood.

The even better news is that you do not have to skip around the office with your arms raised to be put in a good mood. You can just get a Rebel Desk and push that slouch-inducing chair aside.

For more on the study, visit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/boost-your-mood-dancing_n_3281107.html?utm_hp_ref=gps-for-the-soul&ir=GPS%20for%20the%20Soul

The latest issue of The New Yorker features a piece by Susan Orlean called
The Walking Alive: Don’t Stop Moving
(http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/20/130520fa_fact_orlean)

Admittedly, I was weary of the article when I saw the subtitle, “Don’t Stop Moving.” One misconception about treadmill desks is that they must be used from the moment you start working until you turn off the office light. People who test drive treadmill desks and walk on them for hours-on-end typically don’t end up sticking with them. You should vary your activity and walk as is comfortable and effective for you.

My concern about Orlean’s article subsided, however, as I plowed through her insightful piece on why she traded in her Herman-Miller Aeron chair for a treadmill desk. In a subsequent interview, Orlean had some particularly great nuggets of treadmill desk gold (http://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2013/05/17/31835/treadmill-desks-could-be-coming-to-an-office-near/). She describes how working while walking is different from working while sitting:

“I never get that kind of anxious, kind of jittery feeling that I get when I’m sitting at a desk and the sentence isn’t coming and I feel like my leg is jiggling and I’m tapping my keyboard and chewing gum.I just have a lot of nervous energy, and that doesn’t happen now that I’m walking.”

Orlean talks about the many studies showing that “just sitting itself puts your body in a kind of hibernation.” I like this hibernation image, especially because sitting at a desk often leads to an unintentional afternoon nap. It is important to remember how quickly you can go into hibernation, too. Almost immediately upon sitting, your metabolism crashes, good cholesterol starts dropping, and poor posture ensues.

As much as she loves her treadmill desk, Orlean observes that at a price point of as much as $4,000 (there actually are even more expensive ones out there), treadmill desks are out of reach for many. She notes that you can buy a used exercise treadmill for as little as $75, but overlooks the ergonomic and logistical problems of putting a desk with an exercise treadmill.

With Rebel Desk soon there will be no need to splice and dice a DIY treadmill desk. The Rebel Desk will be affordable and fit many budgets.