Sit up straight for a better sex life

It's well-known that slouching is bad for our backs. But poor posture can make you depressed, angry and can even kill your libido, according to a new study, Dailymail.co.uk reports.

People who slouch also use more negative words and become more self-conscious and self-absorbed, researchers found. 

Good posture means keeping your body in correct alignment by maintaining the natural curves of the spine when sitting, standing or lying down. It's essential to prevent back and neck pain, among other things. Yet our stressful, sedentary lives are causing us to develop bad habits such as slouching, slumping and a lack of exercise, according to Sammy Margo, a spokesperson for the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists. 

'As well as the more obvious problems, slouching squashes the abdominal area, reducing its supply of oxygen and nutrients. This impairs digestion, leading to feelings of lethargy and sluggishness. Poor posture also leads to shallow breathing. When this occurs the body perceives itself to be under attack and this exacerbates feelings of stress, which hampers sleep and energy levels.'

This, in turn, means we're less likely to have energy for any action between the sheets at the end of the day - or even want it in the first place. 

As part of the new study, researchers looked at the effects of slumping or sitting up straight on 74 people in New Zealand. The participants were randomly assigned to either a slumped or an upright seated posture, with their backs strapped with physiotherapy tape to hold this position throughout the study. Then, they had to carry out a reading task, with their heart rates and blood pressure were also continuously measured.

They were assessed on the Trier Social Stress speech task, a test which induces stress and then measure's a person's response, and were assessed on their mood, self-esteem and perceived threat. Upright participants reported higher self-esteem, more arousal, better mood and lower fear compared to slumped participants. Speech analysis showed slumped participants spoke less than those sitting upright. When they did speak, they used more negative emotion words, more first-person singular pronouns showing they were more self-focused, more words linked to sadness, and fewer positive emotion words than those sitting up straight.

The study was published in the journal Health Psychology.

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