Don't cross your legs
Two politicians are seen crossing their legs in this file photo. The posture, however, is bad for your health. / Korea Times file
By Song Sang-ho
In 1992, Sharon Stone showed how sexy it is for a woman to cross her legs in the popular movie “Basic Instinct.” In this, the actress seductively performs the action with a killer smile. The scene immediately became a hot issue back then and is still mimicked frequently.
Crossing the legs is thought to be a posture of the sexy and proud. But only a few are aware of the fact that crossing legs can harm our joints.
Sitting by folding one leg under the other tilts one’s weight toward only one side of the body, possibly causing herniation of the invertebral disk. And the imbalance of weight support could cause pelvis deformation and a tilted height of the pelvis. If the pelvis is tilted in height, the length of the legs can also become different, making walking painful. The pelvis imbalance triggers the spine to work in reaction to make a balance. That is to say, the spine tends to bend in “S” shape according to the deformed pelvis. This is called scoliosis. The knee joints also are negatively affected since the weight is placed on only one knee. It is overloaded and the cartilage wears out, leading to possible arthritis.
In addition, there are many careless everyday habits that lead to poor joint health. When talking with others, reading books, or looking at a computer monitor, some people just habitually cup their chin in his or her hand. Propping up the chin with one hand, however, makes one’s bodyweight tilted on one side, thus possibly leading to facial asymmetry.
What we should be more careful about is cervical vertebrae sprain caused by a twisted neck bone. Normally neck and shoulder muscles are tense all the time to support the head except while sleeping. If we support the chin with a hand, however, these muscles are relaxed and feel easy. So we tend to take the posture again and again. But doing this often means our cervical vertebrae area receives an imbalanced degree of tension, which bends the neck the wrong way, damages ligament or muscles and potentially sprains the neck.
As smart phones and tablet PCs are penetrating exponentially, more people spend their time lowering the head and arching forward the shoulders and back just like a tortoise. Such a posture runs the risk of muscle myofascial pain syndrome. This syndrome appears when using the shoulder and neck muscles over excessively for the long time. If muscles stay in such bad posture, tensed for so long without a rest, they lack nutrients and oxygen and feel pain.
Muscle myofascial pain syndrome initially causes pain in the shoulders, and if becoming worse, develops into searing pain that makes a person shout out when the area is pressed. So, try to always maintain good posture and do some simple stretching, like rotating the neck, shoulders and waist, every three to five minutes to ease muscle tension and prevent muscle myofascial pain syndrome.
We should remember this all the time. Poor postures other than this such as standing while putting more weight on one leg, though they may ease muscle tension, harm the joints, too. All this behavior gathers together to decide the health of our joints in the future.
It is thus essential to maintain the right posture in our daily activities. And if we add some muscle stretching in-between, our spine and joints will stay healthy.
There is a saying, “Old habits die hard.” In other words, it is never easy to change a wrong posture once formed habitually. Do not forget small habits we do every day without noticing them determine our health in old age. As you read this article, check your posture now. Uncross your legs, if crossed, and put the knees together. Straighten your waist. Square your shoulders. Do stretch sometimes. Age healthily from this moment on.
The writer is the president of Wellton Bone & Joint Hospital.