Traditional seating vs. #ActiveSitting

One can write a million articles and present a million medical facts, but sometimes the best thing to do is to share a simple image explaining why you should choose a Varier chair over traditional seating. When Norwegian designer Peter Opsvik presented the Variable Balans to the world more than 30 years ago, his aim was to revolutionize the way that we sat. His designs are now classic designs and the Variable Balans has changed the lives of many. I think it’s time the world got a bit of a refresher. In 2013 back pains are becoming even more chronic and a sedentary lifestyle has in fact proven to be cutting years from peoples lives. Why is this?

For one thing, the world has become even more sedentary. Many professions have become digitized and people are spending more time on their bottoms than they ever have. Health-nuts who have realized the deadly effects of this new and digitized lifestyle have taken drastic measures to change their lives, some even installing treadmills in front of their work-desks. For us, the answer has been there all along. Our solution to the chronic back pains and illnesses linked to the world of eight-hour office days and too many lazy hours in front of the television has been the concept of Active Sitting.  Although we applaud peoples inventiveness in trying to fight sedentary sicknesses through treadmills and standing desks the answer is a lot simpler and a lot more feasible long-term than running in front your computer or straining your joints through standing continuously for eight odd hours.

Peter Opsvik believes that “the best sitting position is always the next”. This means that the chair should constantly coax you into a new sitting position as well as encourage the body to move as the rocking chair has done since the early 18th century. Peter Opsvik also soon found out that the best position to sit in is a position that does not strain the spine, but instead aligns the spine in the same natural position that it is in while a person is standing. It is from these findings that his now iconic designs like the Gravity Balans and Variable Balans were born.

The traditional rocking chair and the Gravity Balans

photo credit Wikipedia.org/ Varier

More than 30 years ago, in a little country in the far North called Norway, Peter Opsvik designed ergonomic chairs that are unrivaled to this day. For this he gained international acclaim and a cult following from interior architects and back-pain sufferers alike. Today the whole Varier brand is built on his groundbreaking findings and his designs form the backbone of Variers design philosophy.

Varier’s collection of chairs feature saddle seats, tilting mechanisms, and ease of movement in the form of office chairs, dining chairs and recliners. Through this blog we feature them all through images and informative texts. If you are suffering from back pains or understand the importance of fighting “Sitting Disease” (a current buzz-word for a sedentary lifestyle that puts your life at risk) then please bookmark us! We have so much more to share.

Related articles

• Book Review – Rethinking Sitting by Peter Opsvik (varierfurniture.wordpress.com)
• Into the Archives: An old newspaper article in Norway’s leading newspaper Aftenposten, 13 May 1980 (varierfurniture.wordpress.com)
• Health and Research: Using a stability ball as an office seat versus the Move stool (varierfurniture.wordpress.com)

Chair Inspiration: The Move in Action

Here are some great photographs of the Move in action!

You’d be hard pressed to find another chair that gives much freedom of movement.

You can read why the Move stool is so good for you here: Health and Research: Restoring a body in motion

Is your office chair bad for your health?

Men’s Health helps us answer this question.

This is your body on chairs: 

 1. Electrical activity in the muscles drops — “the muscles go as silent as those of a dead horse,” (MensHealth.com) — leading to a cascade of harmful metabolic effects.

2. Your calorie-burning rate immediately plunges to about one per minute, a third of what it would be if you got up and walked.

 3. Insulin effectiveness drops within a single day, and the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes rises.

4.  …so does the risk of being obese. The enzymes responsible for breaking down lipids and triglycerides — for “vacuuming up fat out of the bloodstream,” (MensHealth.com) plunge, which in turn causes the levels of good (HDL) cholesterol to fall.”

(source: Men’s Health)

Don’t you think that it is time that you reconsidered how you are sitting?

For us, Active Sitting is the only answer.

Health and Research: Using a stability ball as an office seat versus the Move stool

One trend that comes up over and over again in regard to healthier office seating is the use of a stability ball as a seat. Producers claim that using a stability ball provides users with increased health benefits such as the strengthening of core muscles, more calories burnt and less back pain. But can these claims be substantiated? The New York Times says no.  Using backing evidence from a 2009 British study the article concluded that using a stability ball as an office chair “led to just as much slumping and poor sitting positions as a desk chair” (nytimes.com).  Disturbingly, findings from another Dutch study also concluded that using a stability ball as an office seat instead of a conventional office chair led to significant “spinal shrinkage” (nytimes.com).

So what is spinal shrinkage? Spinal shrinkage occurs when cushions between the spinal vertebrae lose fluid due to lack of movement.

Infographic: Sitting is killing you

What is Active Sitting?

Chairs that promote Active Sitting are primarily used by people who experience back-pains and are seeking relief for this as well as a growing number of health-conscious individuals who in light of recent studies wish to counter-act the detrimental effects of sedentary sicknesses.

Related articles

• The Health Risks Involved in a Sedentary Lifestyle (varierfurniture.wordpress.com)
• Health and Research: Actual sitting isn’t the problem. It’s about how long we are sitting. (varierfurniture.wordpress.com)
• Active Sitting – An Aid to the Sedentary Life Style (by Dr. Bret Wilson)

Health and Research: Actual sitting isn’t the problem. It’s about how long we are sitting.

“Did you know that people who watched an average of six hours of TV a day lived 4.8 years less than those who didn’t watch any television? What’s more, every hour of TV that people watched after age 25 was associated with a 22-minute reduction in their life expectancy.”

                                                                                                                                                                                         –Time.com

Human beings sit down, and after a little time they stand up again. That isn’t the problem. The problem lies in the fact that the time span between sitting down and getting up has been growing longer and longer in modern society. It is continuous sitting over several hours that is the problem. Man was made to move.

News – An old Varier advertising campaign is still winning awards!

This morning it came to my attention that an old Varier campaign named “Varier Brain Design” just won “Sølvtaggen” which is a Norwegian advertising award. The advertising agency Dist Creative were given the task to revitalize one of Variers design icons: the Variable Balans while also communicating what makes the chair so unique  …it’s user benefits.

The Variable Balans chair is known by many as “the original kneeling chair”. It was designed to keep your back in its natural curvature. This improves breathing and keeps your back and abdominal muscles working. This active sitting position improves  circulation and oxygen to the brain which aids concentration and creativity.

I cannot state it enough: sitting in one static position for several hours a day is in no way healthy. It puts pressure on the spine, decreases circulation and has been proven to detrimental to your long-term health.

I have already written about this in this previous blog entry, and will continue to elaborate on this in future entries.

You can find the original article about the Sølvtaggen Advertising award (in Norwegian) here.

                                                                                                                                                                                       – Ingrid Holm