Sitting cross-legged? This is what it does to your health - voila! health

good or bad or what?

A woman able to walk (Photo: ShutterStock)

are you sitting

If so, stop for a moment and pay attention to your posture.

what are your feet doing

Do they happen to intersect?

And is the right foot resting on the left or the other way around?

There are usually two ways to sit in a chair and cross your legs, one at the knee and the other lower, at the ankle.

But as comfortable as it can be to sit cross-legged, is it harmful to health and posture?

Adam Taylor, professor and director of the Center for the Study of Clinical Anatomy at Lancaster University published his conclusions in an article in the conversation.

The article states that for starters, research shows that sitting cross-legged can increase the misalignment of the hips, when one is higher than the other.

And it changes the speed at which blood travels through the blood vessels in the lower extremities, which can increase the risk of blood clots.

Additionally, most studies show that crossing the knees is worse than the ankles.

Either way, sitting like this can cause your blood pressure to rise due to blood pooling in your veins, which can increase your risk of blood vessel damage.

But that's not all.

Scoliosis, misaligned pelvis and neck injury

The more and more often you sit cross-legged, the more likely you are to have long-term changes

.

And due to the way the skeleton is built, crossing your legs can also cause

can also be compromised and misaligned due to changes in the neck bones, as the spine compensates to keep the center of gravity above the pelvis.

can also be affected because one side of the body is weaker than the other.

The same imbalance can be seen in the pelvic and lower back muscles as a result of poor posture.

The pelvis may also be misaligned due to prolonged stretching of the gluteal muscles on one side, meaning they become weaker.

And if that's not enough, sitting cross-legged for a long time

(improper alignment of the spine) and other deformities.

It can also cause greater trochanteric pain syndrome, a common and painful condition that affects the outside of the thigh.

By the way, findings show that about 62 percent of people put their right foot on their left, 26 percent sit upside down and 12 percent have no preference.

The effect reaches up to the neck.

A man with neck pain (Photo: ShutterStock, Photographee.eu)

There is also evidence that leg cramps

.

This is because the temperature of the testicles should be between 2°C and 6°C below normal body temperature.

Sitting raises the temperature of the testicles by 2 degrees Celsius and crossing the legs can raise the temperature of the testicles by 3.5 degrees Celsius.

And studies indicate that an increase in the temperature of the scrotum or testicle can reduce both sperm count and sperm quality.

It's also worth noting that due to differences in the anatomy of men and women, it's probably much easier for women to sit cross-legged - especially because men have a reduced range of motion at the hip.

There are also advantages

But research suggests that sitting cross-legged can be beneficial for some people.

One small study from 2016, for example, found that for people who have one leg longer than the other,

Cross-legged sitting also appears to reduce the activity of certain muscles, particularly the oblique muscles compared to sitting with legs forward.

which can help relax the core muscles and prevent overexertion.

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