How do you actually sit properly? You shouldn’t spread your legs, that’s not appropriate. Sitting slumped together is also frowned upon, and slouching around in a chair is not. So the legs are crossed – at a business appointment as well as in a restaurant. This is the sitting posture that has established itself as the least critical in society, at least in public. But that’s not really good. Because in the long run, crossing your legs can damage your health.
The hip
If the legs are crossed, an asymmetry occurs. The pelvis is rotated, tilted to one side and the weight is no longer evenly distributed. Since the pressure is unilateral, the hip muscles, which are responsible for the flexion, and the sciatic nerve are also subjected to greater loads.
the spine
It is well known that poor sitting posture can cause back pain. But not only unfavorable slouching can damage the spine, but also the aforementioned misalignment of the pelvis. This can result in an overload of the ligaments that connect the pelvis and the sacrum, which is the lower part of the spine. This can lead to the spine losing stability and becoming deformed.
“This formation of the legs [can] also increase the likelihood of scoliosis when the spine twists and curves sideways,” Adam Taylor, director of the Learning Center for Clinical Anatomy at Lancaster University, told DailyMail. If the natural curvature is out of sync, it can have an impact on the neck.
The head
As the spine tries to compensate for the misalignment of the hips in order to maintain the center of gravity, this can lead to a change in the neck bones. This in turn influences the position of our head, which can also shift.
The sperm
There is evidence that crossing your legs is detrimental to sperm production. The background is an increase in temperature in the testicles. This sitting position can increase this by up to 3.5 degrees. According to Taylor, the elevated temperature “can lower a man’s sperm count and reduce sperm quality, which can make natural conception more difficult.”
The knee
If we cross our legs, we strain two nerves at once, the common fibular nerve and the tibial nerve. The pressure on the nerves can cause sensation in the leg and foot to be cut off and the leg to become numb.
The blood vessels
There is research that suggests that crossing your legs can increase blood pressure. This is explained by the fact that when you sit in this position, the blood builds up in the veins, which the heart tries to compensate for. The risk of blood vessel damage increases. However, other studies have come to the conclusion that the increase in blood pressure is only temporary.
Sources: Study 1, Study 2, Study 3, ScienceAlert, DailyMail
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