---
title: "Standing Desk Height Calculator and Planner | Desk Blossom"
description: "Standing desk height from your elbow height or your height, in cm and inches, plus a sit-stand planner with optional reminders and what research says."
url: https://deskblossom.me/standing-desk-height/
---

Standing desk height · how long to stand

# Standing desk height calculator

Set a standing desk so the keys are at your elbow height while you stand in your usual shoes, forearms level and shoulders relaxed, and raise the screen with the desk so its top stays at about eye level. For a 175 cm (5 ft 9 in) person in 2.5 cm shoes on a 1.5 cm mat, that is a desk of about 109.9 cm (43.3 in). How long to stand has no proven answer: Cornell University’s ergonomists suggest standing for 8 minutes and moving for 2 in every half hour, and the research mostly says to change position often rather than stand all day.

## Standing desk height, step by step

1. **Stand as you will work:** in your usual shoes, on the mat if you use one, feet slightly apart and weight on both feet. OSHA describes the standing posture as legs, trunk, neck and head roughly in line and upright.
2. **Let your upper arms hang** and bend your elbows so your forearms point forward, level with the floor.
3. **Bring the desk up** until the keys meet your hands at that height. OSHA’s eTool says elbows about level with the keyboard, wrists straight; the HSE says just below elbow height. The calculator takes your keyboard’s height off, because the desk sits under the keyboard.
4. **Raise the screen too.** Cornell’s sit-stand guidance warns that if you raise the keyboard and not the screen, you bend your neck to look down. A screen on the desktop rises with it; a screen on a wall arm or a fixed shelf doesn’t.

**Shoes and mats change the answer.** Every centimetre of heel or mat lifts your elbows by a centimetre, so enter them. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) advises covering hard concrete or metal floors with mats, warns that too much cushioning can cause fatigue and tripping, and says slanted edges help prevent trips. It advises against very high heels and suggests shock-absorbing insoles on hard floors.

If you only know your height, the estimate uses body proportions from the ANSUR II survey of US Army personnel: standing elbow height is about 0.617 of your height and standing eye height about 0.934, both without shoes. The [desk height calculator](https://deskblossom.me/) explains the method and how to measure yourself instead.

## How long should you stand at a standing desk?

Nobody has shown a best number of minutes. Here is what the research does and doesn’t say.

- **Sit-stand desks do cut sitting, for a while.** A Cochrane review (Shrestha and colleagues, 2018) found sit-stand desks reduced sitting at work by about 100 minutes a day in the first three months, and by about 57 minutes between three and twelve months. The authors rated the evidence as low quality, found no evidence on longer follow-up, and expected the effect to fade over time.
- **Standing for long spells has its own problems.** A systematic review (Coenen and colleagues, British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2018) of 49 studies found that standing for more than 4 hours of the working day was linked with low-back symptoms (odds ratio 1.31). Most of those studies were cross-sectional, so they show a link, not a cause. CCOHS lists sore feet, swollen legs and varicose veins among the problems of standing work.
- **Cornell’s suggestion is a rhythm, not a dose.** Cornell University Ergonomics Web suggests sitting in a good posture and, every 20 minutes, standing for 8 minutes and moving for 2, adding that the exact timing isn’t critical and that movement matters more than standing still. It also says its own field studies found little evidence of dramatic benefits, and that people stood for 15 minutes or less a day in total.
- **An expert statement suggests a daily target.** An international group (Buckley and colleagues, 2015) suggested that desk workers build up to about 2 hours a day of standing and light activity during working hours, and eventually 4 hours. They noted that the evidence behind it is largely observational or short-term.

So the planner’s Cornell rhythm is a sensible, published suggestion; our gentle start (45 minutes sitting, 10 standing, 5 moving) is our own easier way in, not a tested schedule. Neither is proven to prevent pain or disease. Change position before you feel stiff, and treat discomfort as a signal to move.

## How the planner works

The planner splits your day into the rhythm you choose, starting each stretch of work sitting and starting again after lunch. Blocks cut short by lunch or the end of the day are shortened, not moved. It totals the time sitting, standing and moving, and lists every change-over.

Reminders are optional. Press Start reminders and the page shows what comes next; if you allow notifications, your browser shows one at each change. They only run while the page is open. Browsers slow down timers in background tabs: Chrome, for example, checks them only once a minute after a tab has been hidden for five minutes, so a reminder may arrive up to a minute late, and Firefox for Android may unload a background tab altogether. Keep the tab open, or pin it, for the day.

## A worked example

The plan above runs from 09:00 to 17:30 with a 45-minute lunch at 12:30: 7 hours 45 minutes of work. The morning holds seven full 30-minute cycles, ending exactly at lunch; the afternoon holds eight, plus 15 minutes of sitting at the end. That adds up to 2 hours standing, 30 minutes moving and 5 hours 15 minutes sitting: close to the 2-hour starting point of the expert statement, and well under the 4 hours a day linked with low-back symptoms.

### Shopping for a desk or chair in the sales?

Some standing-desk and office-chair shops offer a first-order discount code in exchange for an email address, especially around Black Friday (27 November 2026) and the New Year sales. A [CleanTempMail temporary inbox](https://cleantempmail.com/) receives the code with no sign-up and empties itself after three days, so the newsletters that follow have nowhere to land. Place the order itself with your real address: you need the receipt, the delivery updates and the warranty.

## Common mistakes

- **Standing still for an hour.** Cornell says simply standing isn’t enough; shift your weight, walk to the window, take a call on your feet.
- **Leaving the screen at sitting height,** so you look down at it all the time you stand.
- **Typing with the desk too high,** shoulders up and wrists bent. If in doubt, a centimetre lower is kinder than a centimetre higher.
- **Leaning on one hip or locking your knees.** A foot rail or a low box lets you rest one foot and change sides; OSHA mentions resting one foot while standing, and CCOHS says footrests help you shift your weight.
- **Going from none to all day.** Build up over a few weeks, and sit when your legs or back tell you to.

**General information, not medical advice.** If you have back, leg or foot pain, swelling, varicose veins or a heart or circulation condition, ask a GP or physiotherapist how much standing suits you. See a doctor about pain that doesn’t go away or gets worse.

## Sources

All checked on 5 November 2026.

- Cornell University Ergonomics Web: [Sitting and standing](https://www.ergo.human.cornell.edu/CUESitStand.html) (Prof. Alan Hedge).
- Shrestha N, Kukkonen-Harjula KT, Verbeek JH, Ijaz S, Hermans V, Pedisic Z. [Workplace interventions for reducing sitting at work](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6517221/). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2018, issue 12, CD010912 (17 December 2018).
- Coenen P, Willenberg L, Parry S, et al. [Associations of occupational standing with musculoskeletal symptoms: a systematic review with meta-analysis](https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2016-096795). British Journal of Sports Medicine 52(3), 2018.
- Buckley JP, Hedge A, Yates T, et al. [The sedentary office: an expert statement on the growing case for change towards better health and productivity](https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2015-094618). British Journal of Sports Medicine 49(21), 1357–1362 (2015).
- Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS): [Working in a standing position: basic information](https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/ergonomics/standing/standing_basic.html) (fact sheet last revised 30 November 2022).
- OSHA Computer Workstations eTool: [Good working positions](https://www.osha.gov/etools/computer-workstations/positions) and [Keyboards](https://www.osha.gov/etools/computer-workstations/components/keyboards). HSE: [Good posture when using DSE](https://www.hse.gov.uk/msd/dse/good-posture.htm) (updated 20 March 2025).
- Body proportions: Gordon CC, et al. [2012 Anthropometric Survey of U.S. Army Personnel: Methods and Summary Statistics](https://tools.openlab.psu.edu/publicData/ANSURII-TR15-007.pdf), NATICK/TR-15/007 (December 2014), derived dimensions standing elbow rest height and eye height.
- Background timers: MDN Web Docs, [setTimeout(): timeouts in inactive tabs](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/setTimeout) (last modified 26 October 2026); Chrome for Developers, [Heavy throttling of chained JS timers beginning in Chrome 88](https://developer.chrome.com/blog/timer-throttling-in-chrome-88) (January 2021).

## Questions

**How tall should a standing desk be?**

Tall enough that the keys are at your elbow height when you stand in your work shoes with your forearms level. For a 175 cm person in 2.5 cm shoes on a 1.5 cm mat, with a 2 cm keyboard, that is about 109.9 cm (43.3 in).

**How long should you stand at a standing desk?**

There is no proven number. Cornell suggests standing 8 minutes and moving 2 in every half hour; an expert statement suggests building up to 2 hours a day of standing and light activity, then 4. Standing more than 4 hours a day has been linked with low-back symptoms, so alternate rather than stand all day.

**Is the 20-8-2 rule proven?**

No. It is Cornell University’s practical suggestion for breaking up sitting. Cornell itself says the exact timing isn’t critical, and its own field studies of sit-stand desks found little evidence of dramatic benefits.

**Do I need an anti-fatigue mat?**

On hard floors it can help: CCOHS advises mats on concrete or metal floors, but warns that very soft mats can tire you and trip you up. Choose one with slanted edges, and add its thickness to your desk height.

**Will the reminders work in a background tab?**

Yes, while the page stays open and you have allowed notifications, but they may be up to a minute late because browsers slow down timers in hidden tabs. On phones the browser may pause or unload the tab, so keep it in front there.