News

There has been a significant increase in awareness about standing desks in the last few years - much of it due to media attention surrounding studies which have analysed the health risks of our increasingly sedentary office-based work lives. We are obviously happy at Furna when standing desks are given the thumbs up, though we also see an increased need to make sure people are properly educated on exactly what a beneficial "standing desk" is.

Every day there are various posts on social media showing people getting new, purpose made standing desks, but even more from people having built their own DIY standing work stations. There is usually a very large difference between these two things - the biggest being that the DIY option is likely to turn that person off the idea of standing desks very quickly.

"Standing desk" is a simplified term for what a proper standing desk does - it should be adjustable to the exact height a user requires while both sitting and standing (or at least while standing). A "DIY standing desk" often requires the user to accept a close enough height - which is likely a bit too low, or a bit too high. The novelty very soon wears off when the user has been working at a hunched or reaching position for a few hours and feels much worse than when they sat in their office chair.

Not the solution:

This is more like it:

Beneficial standing desk characteristics:

- Adjustable to the exact height for correct body position at all times

- Strong and sturdy to provide a safe working environment

- Preferably quick and easy to adjust between correct sitting and standing heights

- Preferably the whole desk top changes height, so that user is not bending down if wanting to use the main (non-keyboard) desk area while standing