As a professional journalist and software development hobbyist, I generally spend between eight and eighteen hours a day using a computer. This effectively keeps me chained to my desk most of the day, and sometimes late into the night. To combat the physical discomfort of prolonged computer use, I reinvented my home office environment with a focus on ergonomics.

The first thing I did was purchase a better chair—that's easily the most significant thing that you can do to make your office life better. After that, I started to look at desks. Last year, I became intrigued by the idea of a standing desk—a surface that is high enough to accommodate working from a standing position. Further research into the subject convinced me to buy a height-adjustable desk that can elevate to a standing position. After using it for most of the year, I doubt I'll ever want to go back to sitting all day.

The standing desk isn't a particularly new or novel concept. In fact, there are some noteworthy instances that date back to the 1700s. For example, the second and third presidents of the United States, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both had standing desks that they used at times for writing. (Contrary to Internet apocrypha, however, Jefferson didn't use the standing desk to write the Declaration of Independence. The historic document was written on a lap-desk that he originally designed for his long carriage commutes.)

The contemporary standing desk trend really took off in 2007, especially in the tech industry. Employees at companies like Pixar and Google started to take an interest, leading to a burst of mainstream press articles describing the virtues of working while standing. If you dig into some of the references cited in the articles, you will find that there is a growing body of medical research that addresses the issue.

When I started to look more closely at the studies, I found that the health implications of standing on the job are a lot more nuanced than the articles generally reveal. There are plenty of studies that demonstrate the health benefits of working fully upright, but there are also studies that discuss a variety of leg, foot, and circulation problems that can crop up from prolonged standing.

Discussing these studies is beyond the scope of this article, but the main takeaway message that I got from the research—and the one clear point of consensus among health experts—is that regularly changing body position throughout the day is the optimal approach. Setting your work surface at an appropriate height when standing is also vital to comfort. Those considerations are what led me to purchase a height-adjustable desk rather than a regular standing desk.

I've found that alternating between sitting and standing positions has greatly reduced the physical strain that I used to experience during work. My back and knees no longer ache at the end of every day. I also focus better, because I don't feel compelled to step away from my desk and wander aimlessly around my office when I get restless—I can just switch my desk to a standing height and expel some energy in place while I continue working.

There are a number of height-adjustable desks to choose from, but I chose Anthro's Elevate Wrap—a large desk with motorized height adjustment. A small sliding control panel mounted to the bottom of the desk has a pair of buttons for making the desk extend up or go down. The controls are granular, so I can get the optimal height at both sitting and standing positions.

The Elevate Wrap is fairly big—the primary surface, which is shaped in a semi-circle, easily accommodates my three monitors, SIP phone, speakers, and a bunch of empty soda cans. The secondary surface, which fits inside the semicircle and accommodates my keyboard and Magic Trackpad with plenty of room to spare, is mounted so that it can be independently angled. It's important to keep the desk at a high enough position while standing so that you aren't putting extra stress on your wrists.

Before I got the Wrap, my previous desk was the celebrated Ikea Jerker, a piece of furniture that is so popular among technology enthusiasts that it has its own shrine on the Internet (which, sadly, is mostly dead links now). One of the most compelling features of the Jerker was the impressively low price. The same can't be said about the Wrap—it's sole downside is the high cost.

The Elevate Wrap's retail price is is typically $3,099, which is a bit more than I spent on my last PC. You can can get it for less if you wait for Anthro to run a sale, but even the discounted price is more than many people are going to be willing to spend. I eventually talked myself into buying it with the reasoning that it's a critical piece of home office furniture that I'll likely use for a very long time. I have no regrets and have been very happy with that decision.

If you are willing to make a major investment for high-quality office furniture (or you have compromising photos of your boss that you can use as blackmail to get a boost for your expense account) then I highly recommend splurging for one of Anthro's height-adjustable desks. But if you are looking for a less expensive option, there are a number of good alternatives. GeekDesk, for example, sells a single-surface height-adjustable table for $749. Biomorph is another height-adjustable desk vendor with products in a range of different prices.

To test out standing work before committing to a furniture purchase, I first set up a makeshift standing desk so that I could see how it felt. I stacked up some sturdy boxes at the end of my old Ikea desk and put my laptop on top. I recommend performing a similar test for a few days before you decide if it's right for you. If you are looking for a really cheap standing desk solution, you could even do the box thing long-term or make a custom wooden shelf of the proper height to put on the end of your regular desk.

When I first started the standing experiment, I found that my legs got tired quickly—much faster than I expected, in fact. It took a little time to find the best standing posture and get used to the feeling. I discovered that it helped to periodically shift which foot I was putting the weight on. Some of the literature regarding best practices for working while standing endorses that approach and even recommends using a raised item like a block or foot rest for the relaxed foot while the other one carries the weight.

Another issue that I had when I first started was soreness in my feet. My research on the matter indicated that I might get some relief by using a soft gel mat to cushion my feet while standing at the desk. I ended up getting a $60 anti-fatigue mat, the kind that is typically used in kitchens. It feels great and provided sufficient padding, even when I work barefoot. The only downside of the gel mat is that it tends to flatten under pressure, so I have to occasionally move my feet to parts that are still cushy while the flattened parts puff back out.

After I got the gel mat and became accustomed to a good standing work posture, I found that I could stand for longer periods of time without getting tired. During an average 8-hour work day, I typically spend about three hours standing at my desk. That's usually allocated in scattered hour or half-hour blocks, depending on my schedule for the day. I've experimented with more and less time, but I've found that to be the balance that's most comfortable for me. After doing this for most of the year, I'm convinced that a height-adjustable desk was a great choice for my home office.