Standing desk

A standing desk raises and lowers so that part of the working day happens on your feet, either as a full desk or as a riser that sits on the one you already have.

The case for it has quietly shifted. The early claims about burning meaningful calories did not survive scrutiny, but the case for breaking up long unbroken sitting held up better, and standing is one easy way to do that. Which is also the catch: the benefit comes from alternating, not from standing, and a desk left permanently up produces its own aches.

A riser costs about as much as a decent pair of headphones. A motorised desk costs several times that, and the frame matters more than the top, which is where most of the price difference hides.

The standing mat is the part people forget to budget for and then buy within a month, because a hard floor ends the experiment faster than the desk ever will.

If you won't actually move it. The common outcome is an expensive ordinary desk that stays down, and the people who get value from one are the people who raise it several times a day.

If what hurts is your back rather than your legs, a chair that fits you and a screen at the right height will do more, and cost less.