The habit of crossing your legs leads to compression of the blood vessels in the popliteal fossa.
Blood flows through the unblocked vessels of the leg to reach the foot. This leads to several negative consequences.
Firstly, these vessels are forced to pass a larger volume of blood, which can lead to damage to the vessels.
Secondly, the blood pressure on the arterial walls increases, which is unfavorable, especially for people with hypertension. Frequent and prolonged sitting in this position can increase the risk of developing varicose veins.
If you sit with your legs crossed, after a while you may feel a tingling sensation in your calves and feet. This is due to the compression of nerves and a decrease in blood flow to these areas.
If you sit in this position for a long time, your upper leg may go numb. This is a clear signal from your body that it is not happy with this position.
When you cross your legs, one hip joint is higher than the other and the lower spine rotates.
Thus, the pelvis twists and the hip joints receive an uneven load. This means that the spine, which is connected to the pelvis directly through the sacroiliac joints, also curves.
The body's natural desire to compensate for this leads to the fact that in order to maintain the spine in the most vertical position, some muscles are overstrained, while others are shortened.
Therefore, sitting for a long time with your legs crossed leads to severe tension in the back muscles.
Over time, this can lead to a slipped disc (called a prolapsed disc) and pain radiating to the buttock or leg, or even permanent pelvic deformity and postural defects such as scoliosis or hunchback.
What should be done?
The best thing you can do is not to cross your legs. But this is not easy, because you usually do it involuntarily.
So the next time you find yourself sitting at your desk with your legs crossed, stand up and do a few simple exercises – rise up on your toes, shift your weight onto your heels, circle your ankles back and forth, walk around and stretch your calves by stretching your toes up. This will restore normal blood circulation and help muscle regeneration.
If you can't exercise, for example because you're in a meeting, keep your legs parallel to each other or change your position so you don't sit in one place for more than 15 minutes.
Sitting on your knees, a large exercise ball or inflatable disc, or resting your feet on a footrest can also help break this bad habit.
