Stand-Biased Desk Intervention on Sleep Quality of High School Students: A Pilot Study Using Tri-Axial Accelerometery

Exploratory study of the acute and mid-term effects of using a novel dynamic meeting environment (Aeris®) on cognitive performance and neurophysiological responses

The purpose of the present study was to assess the acute and mid-term effects of the dynamic aeris®-meeting- environment on brain activity, cognitive performance, heart rate variability (HRV), sleepiness, mental workload (EEG-MWI), as well as local experienced discomfort (LED) in healthy adults. Twenty-four healthy adults (16 females, age: 25.2 ± 3.1 years old) were randomly assigned to either the control (i.e., conventional meeting environment, CG) or experimental (Aeris® dynamic meeting-environment, DG) group with a 1:1 allocation. Participants reported to the laboratory on two test sessions separated by a 2-week intervention period (5 meetings of 90 min each week). Spontaneous resting EEG and HRV activities, as well as attentional (D2-R test) and vigilance (PVT) cognitive performances, sleepiness perceptions, and EEG-MWI, were recorded at the beginning of each test session and immediately following the 90-min meeting. The LED was measured pre- and post-intervention. The changes (Δ) from pre- to post-90 min meeting and from pre- to post- intervention were computed to further examine the acute and mid-term effects, respectively. Compared to the CG, the DG showed higher Δ (pre-post 90 min-meeting) in fronto-central beta (z = -2.41, p = 0.016, d = 1.10) and gamma (z = -2.34, p = 0.019, d = 0.94) frequencies at post-intervention. From pre- to post-intervention, only the DG group showed a significant increase in fronto-central gamma response (Δ) to the meeting session (z = -2.09, p = 0.04, d = 1.08). The acute use of the Aeris®-meeting-environment during the 90-min meeting session seems to be supportive for (i) maintaining vigilance performance, as evidenced by the significant increase in N-lapses from pre- to post-90 min session only in the CG (p = 0.04, d = 0.99, Δ = 2.5 ± 3 lapses), and (ii) improving alertness, as evidenced by the lower sleepiness score (p = 0.05, d = -0.84) in DG compared to CG. The mid-term use of such an environment showed to blind the higher baseline values of EEG-MWI recorded in DG compared to CG (p = 0.01, d = 1.05) and may prevent lower-back discomfort (i.e., a significant increase only in CG with p = 0.05 and d = 0.78), suggesting a less mentally and physically exhausting meeting in this environment. There were no acute and/or mid-term effects of the dynamic meeting environment on any of the HRV parameters. These findings are of relevance in the field of neuroergonomics, as they give preliminary support to the advantages of meeting in a dynamic office compared to a static office environment.

Effects of using standing desks for 45 minutes on the stress and executive function of elementary school students

Studies have presented data regarding the effects of short-term (weeks) and long-term (one year) use of standing desks in classrooms on children’s health, cognition, and musculoskeletal symptoms. However, no previous study has examined such effects in an extremely short-term period such as one classroom lesson. This study aimed to examine the effects of using standing desks for 45 minutes on elementary school students’ stress and executive function. For this experiment, 56 students were recruited from public elementary schools in Setagayaku, Tokyo, Japan. There were three conditions involving the use of standing desks (standing, sitting, and mixed), and all students performed tasks for 45 minutes in each condition. Measurements of stress and executive function were performed before and after the students engaged with each condition. Stress levels did not differ between the sitting and standing conditions for the full 45 minutes. The number of correct answers in the Stroop test, an interference task, was higher in the standing and mixed conditions (switching between standing and sitting) than in the sitting condition (interaction: F_(1,37) = 3.340, p = 0.04, η² = 0.05). These results indicate that using standing desks for 45 minutes improved the ‘inhibition’ of executive function without excessively increasing stress levels.