Official News - page 5

REAL LIFE NEWS: DON'T SIT UP STRAIGHT

by Hazed

If as a child you were always being ordered to sit up straight, you will be surprised to learn that a new study shows that your mother was in fact wrong. Using a new form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a team of radiologists has found that sitting up straight puts unnecessary strain on the spine and increases the risk of trapped nerves or slipped disks.

Apparently, the ideal angle at which you should be sitting is leaning backwards at an angle of about 135 degrees. That sounds like my preferred position when propped up in bed on a big pile of cushions reading, or lounging in my comfy chair watching TV, but I can't quite see how it's going to work for anyone sitting at a desk using a computer.

The study was carried out in a hospital in Aberdeen, Scotland. It involved 22 healthy volunteers with no history of back pain or surgery. They were scanned by a moveable MRI machine while they adjusted their posture between three sitting positions: a slouch, with the body hunched forward over a desk or video game console; upright, which is the traditional posture we have all been told to assume; and a relaxed position leaning backwards but with feet kept on the floor.

By measuring the spinal angles and the arrangement and height of spinal discs and movement in the three different positions, the radiologists found that the relaxed posture best preserved the spine's natural shape.

Now all we need is a way to convince bosses everywhere that when you lean back in your chair looking relaxed you are still working, honest...

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