Cardiac autonomic responses to different tasks in office workers with access to a sit-stand table – a study in real work setting

Abstract

The aim of this study was to characterise the cardiac autonomic modulation of different office tasks performed by office workers with access to a sit-stand table. Heart rate variability (HRV) of 24 office workers was measured for two hours during three days in the last week of sit-stand table use. HRV indexes and the percentage of heart rate reserve (%HRR) were calculated during computer and non-computer work tasks while sitting or standing, non-computer tasks away from the work desk, and informal work breaks. All cardiac autonomic responses demonstrated a statistically significant interaction effect between the tasks (all p < 0.05) except for the logarithmically-transformed high frequency power (ln HF ms²; p = 0.14). Tasks performed while standing and away from the desk had higher sympathetic modulation; in addition, the observed higher %HRR demonstrated that these tasks were more physically demanding in comparison to other tasks.

Practitioner Summary: Prior reports indicated benefits based on alternated body postures using sit-stand table. Nevertheless, the cardiac autonomic responses of different tasks performed by office workers are unknown. This cross-sectional study showed that different tasks stimulate the cardiac autonomic nervous system in different ways, which could bring positive effects to the cardiovascular system.

Keywords:

• Heart rate variability
• heart rate
• office work
• sit-stand table
• occupational health

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for administrative support from the Federal University of São Carlos and the University of São Paulo (Campus São Carlos) and to the staff who participated in the study.

Author contributions

DBF and ABO conceived of and designed the research. DBF conducted experiments. TB, JCMM, and LAB contributed to the data processing. LAB analysed data. LAB and DBF wrote the manuscript. ABO and DBF were involved in planning the study. TB, JCMM, DBF, ABO, and AMC critically revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the São Paulo Research Foundation [FAPESP – Grants 2012/24502-2, 2018/06359-4, 2017/09639-5, 2018/19016-8 and 2019/25140-6] and the National Council of Technological and Scientific Development [CNPq – Grant 472946/2013-7]. The funders had no role in study design, collection and analysis of data, or preparation of or decision to publish the manuscript.