--- title: Standing Desk: Why To Use A Treadmill Desk at Work description: Can working at a treadmill desk or a standing desk do more than just burn calories? Active workstations might have psychological benefits canonical: https://time.com/3551130/standing-desk-treadmill-desk/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-31T18:13:51.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T11:09:15.758Z article:section: Health og:title: Here's Your New Reason To Demand A Treadmill Desk og:description: Can working at a treadmill desk or a standing desk do more than just burn calories? Active workstations might have psychological benefits og:url: https://time.com/3551130/standing-desk-treadmill-desk/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt34ba76b11b5b05f6/698763c08e06015c86458063/hands-keyboard.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5127 og:image:height: 2884 og:image:alt: keyboard hands og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's Your New Reason To Demand A Treadmill Desk twitter:description: Can working at a treadmill desk or a standing desk do more than just burn calories? Active workstations might have psychological benefits twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt34ba76b11b5b05f6/698763c08e06015c86458063/hands-keyboard.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's Your New Reason to Demand a Treadmill Desk > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Oct 31, 2014 6:13 PM UTC  Cape Verdean woman typing on keyboard Cape Verdean woman typing on keyboard Getty Images  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Oct 31, 2014 6:13 PM UTC Active workstations do more than just burn on-the-clock calories, finds a new [study](http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2014-44475-001/) in the _Journal of Occupational Health Psychology_. Standing desks and treadmill desks might make you healthier while also improving mood and not interfering with work. Study co-author Michael Sliter, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at Purdue University-Indianapolis, wondered if active workstations were good for anything but caloric expenditure on company time. “That would be of limited value if people actually performed worse, were stressed out when they were doing it, or got bored of it,” he says. So the study assigned 180 people to one of four workstations: a seated desk, standing desk, treadmill desk or cycling desk. After a bit of practice, they did 35 minutes worth of tasks. Researchers measured their performance and how much they liked their workstation in reported levels of boredom, stress, satisfaction and how engaged they were in the task. **MORE**: [This Hamster Wheel Treadmill Desk Is the Ideal Way to Make Your Coworkers Hate You](http://time.com/3404299/hamster-wheel-treadmill-desk/) “We were able to show that these active workstations have psychological benefits without performance detriment,” says Sliter—for the most part, that is. People at treadmill desks were less bored, less stressed and more satisfied than those at seated, standing or cycling desks. In terms of how well people were able to do their job, everyone performed equally except for the desk cyclists. Turns out, Sisyphean pedaling while whizzing through Excel spreadsheets doesn’t do your work performance or mental health any favors: desk cyclists generally performed worse and were less satisfied, though Sliter says they were probably too uncomfortable to be bored. “It was kind of funny watching people, because you could actually see their arms moving up and down while they were pedaling,” says Sliter, who walks on his treadmill desk about three hours a day. “We found that you can’t really work very well when you’re also pedaling.” Being active at work is one way to combat the dreaded sitting-desk syndrome: loads of research shows that [seated desks are a ticking time bomb](http://time.com/sitting/) for your health. This new study shows that standing up to sitting at work has more than just physical benefits—it might help your mind, too. **MORE**: [VIDEO: Walking While Working](http://content.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,3344526001%5F1862574,00.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3551130/standing-desk-treadmill-desk/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3551130/standing-desk-treadmill-desk/"},"headline":"Here's Your New Reason to Demand a Treadmill Desk","datePublished":"2014-10-31T18:13:51.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T11:09:15.758Z","description":"The health benefits of anything-but-sitting","url":"https://time.com/3551130/standing-desk-treadmill-desk/","keywords":["Exercise & Fitness","Exercise","Sitting"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt34ba76b11b5b05f6/698763c08e06015c86458063/hands-keyboard.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mandy Oaklander","jobTitle":"Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt34ba76b11b5b05f6/698763c08e06015c86458063/hands-keyboard.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"keyboard hands","caption":"keyboard hands","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/exercisefitness/","name":"Exercise & Fitness"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3551130/standing-desk-treadmill-desk/","name":"Here's Your New Reason to Demand a Treadmill Desk"}}]}] ```