CategoriesBack pain Design Working from home
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A holistic approach and the revolutionary table

A BeneSit chair in size L used at a high kitchen table

Many people might think that a good sitting position requires a good chair. And we don’t disagree with that. But it definitely also requires a good table!

In BeneSit, we are often in dialogue with customers who want to use the BeneSit chair in a work situation. Then we ask about their work setup, as it is important for us to get a holistic picture of what it looks like when they are working. 

Through our collaboration with an occupational therapist, statements from experts and from our own experience, we have found that sitting tall with your knees below hip height and having an open hip is essential for a good posture.

To achieve this good sitting position, many people will find that the usual fixed office desks and dining tables are too low. The height-adjustable desk has made it possible to do personal adjustments and actually made it possible for office workers to choose the right chair for themselves, rather than choosing the right chair for the table.

We therefore always recommend using a height-adjustable desk, but also know that many people don’t have access to it in a home working situation. In this context, we want to inspire you to think a little “out of the box” and raise the computer to the ideal height (for example, by using a thick book or similar) in order to still be able to choose the chair that fits you.

Read more about the BeneSit chair and back pain here.

CategoriesBack pain
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New report from The Danish Health Authority

Picture from The Danish Health Authority report

The Danish Health Authority has recently published an updated report on the burden of disease in Denmark.

It contains interesting results and focuses on 15 selected diseases that are significant in terms of prevalence, hospitalizations, contacts with the hospital and practice sector, early retirement, long-term sick leave, economic consequences, etc. Moreover, they have a certain prevention potential.

In particular, lower back and neck pain have an incredibly high prevalence in Denmark. In Denmark, more than 1.6 million people were living with lower back and neck pain in 2017. This, of course, has a major impact on our well-being and health, but it also has major economic consequences for society.

Overall, lower back and neck pain is the cause of 25.5% of all sick days and accounts for almost DKK 39,000 million annually in lost production due to absence from the labor market and early death. 

In BeneSit, we want to help reduce these figures through our alternative office chair. The BeneSit chair strengthens and activates the back and abdominal muscles and helps to create a healthier and more upright sitting position.

Read more about back pain and the BeneSit chair here.

CategoriesBack pain Entrepreneurship
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Behind the scenes of BeneSit – university, strength training and back pain

CEO and co-founder of BeneSit, Caroline, in 2020 with the newly launched BeneSit chair

Today we invite you behind the scenes of BeneSit, where we will share a personal story of how a personal need evolved into the development of the BeneSit chair. 

In 2019, one of the BeneSit founders, Caroline, was studying to be a design engineer at DTU. Here, much of her time consisted of sitting during lectures and working in project groups or individually at home or at the university. 

The seated position became a large part of her everyday life and as a counterbalance to this she spent much of her free time in the gym. This was intended to minimise the low back pain she was experiencing, but unfortunately ended up having the opposite effect. The switch from a completely sedentary everyday life to heavy strength training was not what her body needed.

Rethinking rather than compensating

Together with Peter, the other founder of BeneSit (and her father), the development of BeneSit began. Rather than compensating for all those sedentary hours with exercise, for example, they wanted to rethink the way we sit. 

It became clear to Caroline that the key is not necessarily what you do AFTER sitting still for many hours, but how you can incorporate different initiatives to AVOID sitting still in the same way for many hours. 

In early 2020, Peter and Caroline introduced the BeneSit chair, which, in addition to being a design furniture, creates the opportunity to have an active and varied day in front of the computer.
If you also want to create more variety in your working posture, you can buy your own BeneSit chair here.

CategoriesInterior Working from home
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A look inside a home office

We have been so lucky to get a look into a customer’s home and home office. She uses the BeneSit chair both in her home office and as a freestanding piece of furniture. The pictures above show how well the chair fits into her beautiful home. 

She says the following about the chair:

“For many years I have had pain in my back. In particular, I tend to ‘slump’ in my upper back when I sit and work. It has become a focal point for me! And I have FINALLY found a chair that can help me.

It is produced in Denmark and assembled by hand by the family owned company BeneSit.

The core of the chair is made of 100% recyclable material and the fabric is Oeko tex certified. It is easy to move as it has a practical leather handle.

But the best thing is that it’s good for my back. I can feel that I straighten my back when I sit on the chair. And it doesn’t matter that it also acts as a sculpture in the room when not in use.”

We love getting these small glimpses into our customers’ lives and homes and hope you do too!
See more of the customer’s beautiful home here and shop your own BeneSit chair here.

CategoriesDesign Entrepreneurship
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Launch of new and improved seat

Here you can see the previous seat to the left (red chair) and the new seat to the right (petrol chair)

Today we want to share a little peek “behind the scenes” and into our production. We have been working on further developing the seat of the BeneSit chair and are now launching the new and improved seat!

The new seat…

💚 is moulded foam which minimizes waste

☁️ is made of highest quality foam

⭐️ provides more comfort

⬜️ has a more streamlined look

We refer to our instagram profile where we have shared a small video showing the previous and new seat up close.

We look forward to hearing your opinion on the new seat!

CategoriesBack pain
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The correct posture at work is a myth!

Maybe this work posture isn’t that bad after all? As long as it is mixed up with other positions!

We have come across an interesting article from the National Research Centre for Working Environment written by Head of Research Andreas Holtermann.

In the article, Andreas debunks the myth that there is one correct working posture when sitting in front of a desk. He explains that far too much time is spent talking about the correct posture and position in the workplace.

Instead, there should be more focus on listening to the body’s sensory system, which tells us what we need. And in this context, the working environment must be designed to allow us to act on the signals our bodies send.

We, at BeneSit, find these points enormously interesting as they challenge many of the dogmas that exist around the good working environment today. 

We believe, like Andreas, that it is ideal if the workplace accommodates different working positions – relaxed, active, standing, sitting, varied. This is one of the reasons why we never recommend our customers to use the BeneSit chair all day. Rather, we encourage its use as a complement to another office chair while frequently varying the working posture.

Read more about the BeneSit chair and back pain here.

Do you follow exact “rules” to obtain the correct sitting position or do you listen to your body?

CategoriesTips & Tricks Working from home
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How to improve your home office experience

BeneSit chair in home office

Some people love having a day at the home office, but not everyone. Are you one of those who find it hard to enjoy a working day from home, or perhaps you’re self-employed and find it hard to create structure in your everyday life?

We’ve been inspired by this article and want to share our variation of some of these tips with you below.

REMEMBER YOUR BODY

In the office, we often have access to a variety of ergonomic furniture – most likely a height-adjustable desk and perhaps an ergonomic computer mouse. Not everyone has this luxury at home, so it may require a little creativity to incorporate good seating positions.

But it’s not necessarily about finding one perfect sitting position – perhaps more about finding many different positions to switch between. Stand at the kitchen table, sit on a balancing chair (such as the BeneSit chair), sit on the floor and lean back on the sofa. After all, the best position is the next position!

UTILIZE THE COMMUTE

One advantage of working from home is that you save time on commuting. Instead, spend it on something that will set the scene for a good day’s work.

Examples include going for a walk, preparing a nice lunch, getting some housework done so you can relax after work or reading a good book.

CREATE A SENSORY ENVIRONMENT

Explore which sensory elements make you feel energised, efficient and in a good mood.

Maybe sitting in front of a window so you can look at the sky, the trees and the people on the street will inspire you? Maybe you work best when you hear music or have “white noise” in the background? Maybe you keep your brain active if you move your body at the same time (e.g. by using the BeneSit chair) or maybe you associate a nice and efficient working day with a good freshly brewed cup of coffee?

Would you try some of these tips to create a better day at the home office?

CategoriesDesign
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Rethinking the way we sit

BeneSit rethinks the concept of “chairs” and the way we sit

If you were to ask a great number of people how they would define “a chair” the answer would probably be something along the lines of “something you can sit on that has four legs”.

We have a clear association connected to the word “chair” and therefore it is very understandable when people need a minute to figure out that the BeneSit is also a chair – despite it not having four legs.

Developing for the human body

An example of someone who is also rethinking the way we sit is Niels Diffrient. We have been inspired by his TED Talk where he shares his story about how he developed a new office chair based on a fundamental data set – the human body. 

He explains how the chair should do as much for office people as humanly and mechanistically possible and that no 20-page manual should be necessary. He says that “…the one thing they don’t need, is a chair that interferes with their main reason for sitting there”.

These points fit perfectly with the BeneSit vision of a good office chair. However, when we express that the chair should do as much for office people as possible, we probably mean it in a different way than Niels Diffrient.

Rather than supporting the person from head to toe and therefore helping the person to avoid engaging the body, we want the chair to support an active way of sitting. We believe that, in the long run, it is more helpful for office people to be supported in incorporating subtle movement in their sitting rather than “taking away” the movement and engagement of their sitting posture.

You can read more about the principles of the BeneSit chair here.

What are your thoughts? Should office chairs “take away” movement or initiate movement?

CategoriesBack pain Design
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Design of children’s furniture

When discussing work space design, sitting positions and back pain we often think of adults. However, children also spend much of their time sitting down.

Today, we want to share some inspirational points from the article “Children’s behaviour and the design of school furniture” by Knight & Noyes. They explain that furniture is used extensively during childhood, which is a vital period of human physical development. A study even shows that children aged 13-16 were seated for 78.7% of their time in the classroom.

This illustrates the importance of well-designed school furniture. To ensure this we must consider the tasks children carry out at school to be able to identify the functions that are needed from the furniture. 

School furniture should support the children’s tasks

The article explains how the school furniture should support the two major tasks of school children; attending to the teacher and writing/drawing at the working surface. Furthermore the furniture should ensure that the children stay in one place (to not distract each other) as well as facilitate learning through a comfortable and stress-free workstation. 

Knight & Noyes explain how it is generally accepted that school furniture should be designed to accommodate movement while sitting. They present this as a paradox as they have just established that school furniture also should ensure that children stay in the same place.

We find this “paradox” very interesting and believe that this is exactly what we try to solve with the BeneSit chair. We do agree that school furniture should minimize distracting interactions and accommodate movement, but we do not agree that one excludes the other. 

The BeneSit chair creates a workstation which – through small movements – makes the child concentrate for longer and thereby also minimizes the distraction of other children. “Staying in the same place” and “movement” should not be seen as a paradox but rather two coexisting elements which create the basis for great children’s furniture.

Our BeneSit chair in the size Small is primarily developed for children who need higher movement freedom when carrying out seated work. You can read more about the BeneSit chair here.

CategoriesDesign
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Functionality and aesthetics in product development

The BeneSit chair in size Small

At BeneSit, we often talk about functionality and aesthetics. It is an important priority for us that these two elements are integrated in our product.

According to this article published by Cambridge University Press, functionality refers to the performance of a product, while aesthetics represents the visual and ergonomic appeals of the product.

In our opinion, it is difficult – if not impossible – to create a successful product where only one of these elements is present. They must therefore coexist to meet both the practical and visual needs of the user.

The BeneSit chair has been designed with a starting point in functionality and through its simple construction and the few selected materials, the aesthetic is created. We believe that the two elements support each other, creating a better product overall.

What role do you think functionality and aesthetics play in the development of a product?

You can read more about the BeneSit chair here.