Slashdot Mirror
Posture Affects Standing, and Not Just the Physical Kind (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: As somebody who sits in front of a computer most of the day, and has for a number of years, this article at the NY Times struck a bit close to home. It compiles a list of the negative consequences of poor posture. There are the obvious ones, like neck and muscle pain, joint problems, digestive issues, and so forth. But there are social problems, too. We're probably all aware that slouching can give a worse first impression than standing straight, but there's also evidence it can influence who a mugger picks to rob, and how you feel. "In a study of 110 students at San Francisco State University, half of whom were told to walk in a slumped position and the other half to skip down a hall, the skippers had a lot more energy throughout the day (abstract)." So take this as your yearly reminder, fellow keyboard-hunchers — sit up straight, move around every so often, and maybe invest in that standing desk.
slouchers as victims.
Chairs are designed for creatures with an anatomy that couldn't possibly resemble anything humanoid. In order to sit comfortably in my chair at work I have to be on the very edge of the seat, with my back at a 45 degree angle toward my desk. If I sit all the way back into the seat, my back will conform the shape of the back rest, which for some reason is the S curve that you see in severe scoliosis cases.
Tried it for a bit only to find out that I cannot concentrate as well when I am standing. Is it just me?
first thing is to Not Look Like Food
second if you have had any training at all in emotional control DBT , Anger Management then you will find out that actions/attitude can influence Mood.
its also the Pack "chain of command" thing act like an alpha and folks might treat you like an alpha
Stand at your desk instead. I started desk standing when just standing up from sitting for a few hours was uncomfortable. Weight went down and my energy went up.
They just recently had a rather large study over 16 years prove sitting has no impact.
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/...
Just getting tired of all the fearmongering. Medical science told everyone fat was evil, so everyone swapped to using sugar instead and started an obesity epidemic. Decades later, studies find that fat was fine and had no ill effects. Eggs, milk, gluten, all the same trends repeating themselves.
There comes a point when you can't trust any medical study on diets or broad behaviors impacting mortality.
The study doesn't compare slouching to standing straight - it compares slouching to skipping.
And I guarantee you a guy skipping down the street is going to draw more attention from muggers and other thugs.
#DeleteChrome
Standing all the time has a host of issues associated with it as well and stand-up desks are not necessarily better. Sit up straight and move around regularly is great advice. A desk that can be set to standing and seating with the push of a button works well, since you can do both readily.
In a nine sentence abstract the word subjective is used five times, yet the title is "How Body Postures Influence Your Energy Level".
Science
If you think standing helps when looking at documents with your co-workers, this study clearly shows that you will gain an additional advantage if you analyze your documents while skipping. You will have a clearer mind and feel much more refreshed after doing so. Additionally, if you do this while analyzing documents with your coworkers, your choice will benefit your coworkers as well. If they don't want to skip with you, they will be "left behind" in the workplace.
Jury!
As somebody who sits in front of a computer most of the day...
http://abstrusegoose.com/354
This one was horrifyingly accurate when I first found it.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
straight from the fascist kindergarten department
Or just skip down the hall on the way to and back from the restroom...
I've switched from a conventional office chair to a Varier Balans and I feel better now. Previously my SI joint used to make all kinds of noises when I stood up after a prolonged sitting period. For me this new chair is working better.
Standing desks are not without their problems. At the very least they increase the risk of deep vein thrombosis.
My own personal experience is in line with this article. I previously suffered from bad posture, but it has improved a lot over the past year or so. I can already feel a huge difference in the way people perceive me. Granted, I've been weight training and have added about 25lbs of lean muscle, so that likely contributes something as well. Doing lots of lat exercises like chin-ups seems to have made the biggest difference for me.
We focus so much on the negative consequences of sitting around all day because of the general nature of the audience on this site. But standing all day leads to a number of foot and vascular problems. Unlike the problems of sitting, which can be offset by a decent chair, paying attention to posture, and a few minutes of exercise after work some of those foot and vascular problems aren't really curable.
You pop a vain in your leg because you've been on your feet all day and the only thing they can really do about it is inject saline or something similar causing the vein to collapse and the blood to re-route.
And as someone who has worked full time on his feet in the past and developed pain in my feet. I assure you, a podiatrist will speak with confidence but the treatment effectiveness is so far from science that it is effectively voodoo. The foot, calf, all the tendons ligaments, and all those very very very many bones involved is extremely complicated. For 45% of people you can solve a lot of the foot problems by stepping on the machine at walmart and getting custom footpads, for maybe 5-10% the complicated extra braces or specialized shoes, etc from a podiatrist will take care of it when that fails (and cost a great deal of money), for the rest the only solution to sit down.
Trust me, if you haven't spent a few months on your feet for 6+hrs 4-5x a week and don't have arch problems you will after doing so for a few months.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... at least according to the MST3K guys.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Tl;dr another troll story telling the target audience of /. how our skills and choice of education has led us to unhealthy careers and an early grave. Except you know what else can shorten your life expectancy? STARVING TO DEATH because you have no money.
Standing desks are no better than sitting desks. Maintaining any position for a long period of time is harmful. They key here is movement.
But after years of being a lazy, reclining sysadin, my back hurts like a motherfuck if I even dream of sitting 'wrong' these days.
On the plus side, it's easily fixed by having a manhug where I'm lifted up into the air (the weird bones-moving feeling and cracking noises are awesome, to be honest) and/or having a friend tug on my left arm really hard.
I've always had decent posture, stood up straight, and colleagues at one past job wondered if I had a military background. Figures. I try to give myself an excuse to stand up and walk around every hour or two. Coffee is helpful. :-)
Like all things, it's a matter of balance. I'm tall (6'1") and if I didn't have good posture I'd be in trouble.
I see an epidemic of slouching people with incipient dowager's humps from constantly leaning over their smart phone...
...laura
To your attention:
a. The original paper is from 2012, in a not-so-well-known journal called Biofeedback(TM). I doubt it has a high impact factor, I managed to find none.
b. I doubt how much you can learn from such artificial movements which involve external interference with the person's natural behavior.
c. The direction of causality may be easily confused. Does feeling happy make us move more or the other way around?
d. The methodology of asking people how they feel, after you have made them do something which is culturally associated with some feeling is less than scientific.
Enjoy your sitting.
I agree that posture has significant effects on well being and how we are perceived, but the images I had as a kid of good posture were misguided. Military attention and finishing school book-balanced-on-your-head stiffness are not good example of ideal posture. They are too tense, stressing shoulders and lower back, among other things.
Good posture is balanced and flexible. Imaging partially hanging from a string attached to a point straight above the spine on the top of your head, with relaxed (not slouched) shoulders and back. Instead of rigidly holding a position and pivoting the body at one point, allow the hips and back, legs, shoulder, etc to adapt like an inverted pendulum to maintain balance -- not wiggly, just adaptable.
I hope this doesn't come off as too didactic, but it took me 50 years to begin to learn to move properly and it makes a big difference. At least for me.
Jury!
Sorry, they are still out.
I have a diploma in performing arts which I got in the 90ies. '99 was my fittest year, I had completely compensated the nerd posture problem including ditching my back pain and the need for medical insoles and felt great. I did a career switch into IT, with my posture getting worse again. In 2008 I picked up Tango dancing and improved my posture on the fast track again, with people close to me wondering how strait I stand.
I can attest: We are cousins of primates - how we stand and walk severely affects how we are percieved and how we can influence people around us. I see this effect in interaction with women, in the workplace and in everyday life. My social standing has notably improved since then and I attest this also to the way I stand, walk and with which posture I face people in public and private settings.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
An actress friend of mind recommended this to me years ago to help me with a back problem. The Alexander Technique provides gently guided body awareness training. Something performers often need to have. Helped me improve my gate after surgery. Very different deal than yoga.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
I'm 6'4" (193cm). "Standard"-height chairs are often too low for my liking, even adjustable office chairs can't always be adjusted high enough. This results in me having to sit either with legs folded under the chair (which tends to cut off circulation), or legs extended (which promotes slouching posture).
Sitting in the "normal/good posture" upright position (knees approx at 90) tends to lift my thighs off the sitting surface of the chair, thus concentrating pressure on a small area of my hip bone - this can not be maintained for long before getting painful. I'm constantly shifting this way and that, changing sitting position constantly to find something more comfortable - and it's seldomly working - very distracting.... I have found that slouching is one of the positions I subconsciously fall into, as it tends to tilt the hips a bit and relieve that concentrated pressure. Very bad habits...
Next week when more businesses (in my area) are hopefully open again, I should go hunting - again - for a better office chair. Unfortunately this needs to be physical, trying the merch out instore, internet orders off the catalogue don't cut it in this case. Would be better if one could use a chair for a whole day or even work week before buying...
As an aside, I hurt my back a while back and was ordered to avoid sitting and standing for a couple of days to give those muscles a chance to recover. Since then I've occasionally taken to working in bed (flat on my back). I for one think that after sitting and standing desks, "lying down" desks should become the new fashion :-)
Interestingly, I read an article about a photographer who noticed, while taking images of indigenous people, this exact posture. What she also noticed was that there were 80 year old women bending over from the waist with no apparent pain while picking vegetables. This diverged into reviewing old plates in medical textbooks which showed a much greater curvature at the top and bottom of the spine; an "S" shape, as opposed to our "J" shape. She now teaches a method based on her observations.
The article: http://www.npr.org/sections/go...
Her website: http://gokhalemethod.com/
That muggers/thieves will pick people who slouch and look down/avoid eye contact, has been reported on before, and It's not false. Such posture/behavior telegraphs that you're a target easy for the picking, not likely to fight back. Walking upright, being willing to make eye contact is something people with at least some sense of self worth, etc. do, and make you a much less attractive target.