They do one thing well - Cochrane found sit-stand desks cut workplace sitting by 84 to 116 minutes a day.
That matters because long sitting tracks with obesity, heart disease, and premature death. The honest limits from the same review: no meaningful change in musculoskeletal symptoms or sick leave, standing burns barely more energy than sitting, and it is unclear whether standing repairs the harms of sitting - evidence quality was very low. The real lever is breaking up sitting and moving; the desk is one way to do it. Pymander's escalation routing is built and tested specifically for this class of decision; see the safety architecture working paper .
What to do
Common questions
Are standing desks better for you?
They do one thing well - get you out of the chair - and it is easy to over-read what that buys. Cochrane's review of workplace interventions found sit-stand desks reduce workplace sitting by 84 to 116 minutes per day, and they cut long unbroken sitting bouts too. That is real: long sitting stretches track with obesity, heart disease, and premature death in the research. The honest limits from the same review: standing desks did not meaningfully change musculoskeletal symptoms, sick leave, or work performance, standing burns barely more energy than sitting, and it remains unclear whether standing can repair the harms of sitting - the evidence quality was very low throughout. So the desk is a tool, not a treatment: the health lever is breaking up sitting and adding actual movement, and a timer that walks you to the kitchen does the same job for free. If a sit-stand desk gets you alternating positions and moving more, it earns its footprint. If it becomes a standing-all-day station, you have swapped one static posture for another.