Did you get yelled at as a teenager because of your posture? Parents and teachers can sometimes seem a little obsessed with standing up straight.

And they may be right: bad posture can do real harm, and good posture can be almost miraculous.

bad posture

Poor posture can cause a lot of physical problems, and some of them may not be what you expect. Pain in the neck? Surah Back pain? Oh yeah! But constipation, urinary incontinence and heartburn?

Yes, these problems, along with difficulty breathing and decreased energy, are also among the unfortunate consequences of not holding yourself upright.

Read more: Chronic pain makes you think differently

Consequences of bad posture

The damage from poor posture can also be cumulative. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), prolonged slouching can even make your spine brittle and more vulnerable. As we get older, decades of neglecting our posture can lead to reduced flexibility and balance problems, which can increase the risk of falls.

But not all of the harmful effects of constant slouching are physical. Have you ever squared your shoulders and lifted your chin in preparation for a presentation or before walking into your boss’s office to ask for a raise? There’s a reason we tend to do this, and not just because our moms told us not to slouch.

Pose for confidence

One study, researchers have shown that straight posture increases self-confidence by making us think better of ourselves. In a press release announcing these results, Richard Petty, professor of psychology at Ohio State University and one of the authors of the study, explained how it works.

“Most of us have been taught that standing upright makes a good impression on other people,” he said, “but it turns out that our posture can also affect how we think about ourselves. judging by the posture you’re in.”

Anxiety and posture

You may want to keep your head straight and your back straight the next time you go to math class. A 2018 study found that good posture can help with math anxiety. Students with math anxiety had more difficulty completing a math task if they slouched than if they sat up straight. Why does posture matter in math class? The authors of the study suggest that “upright head postures may facilitate access to positive and inspiring thoughts and memories, thereby helping students perform better.”

Much like the effect of posture on self-confidence, the benefits of working on math problems seem to trick you into thinking you have it. The authors suggest that this approach should work not only in mathematics, but in almost any situation where nerves can get the better of you – for example, in sports achievements.

Read more: What is anxiety and how can anxiety overcome us?

What is correct posture?

So you’re convinced your mom was right all along and you want to improve your posture. What can you do?

Even experts don’t always agree on what constitutes good posture, especially when it comes to the modern world’s favorite pastime: sitting in an office chair. In 2012 survey of nearly 300 physical therapists, posture specialists were asked to determine the best sitting position to prevent lower back pain.

The two most commonly recommended postures were almost exactly opposite of each other. (Though it’s worth noting that neither involved bending the body into a comma shape and falling onto the keyboard.)

How to fix bad posture

Luckily, experts agree on how to fix bad posture. And the offers are pretty much what you’d expect.

• Keep your head more or less in line with your spine without hanging or leaning back.

• Imagine that a string stretches from your tailbone to the top of your head. Try to keep this string as straight as possible. This will naturally pull your shoulders back, pull your stomach in, and lift your head.

• Keep your core muscles in good shape.

• If you spend a lot of time sitting at your desk, arrange your workspace so that you can comfortably sit upright. If you can afford it, invest in an ergonomic work chair.

Now stop slouching and stand up straight!

Read more: The Science of Healthy Habit Formation

Saturn is the jewel of the solar system, with its magnificent rings and a retinue of strange moons. This is the best of the planets visible to the naked eye – technically Uranus . bright enough to see, though you need good eyesight and a very dark place, but still pretty easy to pick out among the stars.

If you’re an early riser (or a late party), now is a good time to look for Saturn, not because it’s brighter or closer to Earth than usual, but because it’s been in the news recently. New research shows that its rings are relatively young from a cosmic point of view, and astronomers have also just announced the discovery of a number of tiny moons of Saturn that make the planet the current record holder for the most moons.

Saturn currently rises above the horizon early in the morning local time and about an hour later rises high enough to be seen low in the southeastern sky. If you get up just before dawn, it will be about 25 degrees above the horizon, or about 2.5 times the width of your outstretched fist—a universal unit of measurement among astronomers. Don’t confuse it with the nearby star Fomalhaut, which is closer to the horizon than Saturn and has nearly the same brightness. Jupiter is closer to the eastern horizon (below and to the left of Saturn for observers from the Northern Hemisphere), but it is 15 times brighter and much easier to see.

If you’d rather avoid watching before dawn, then waiting is fine too: Saturn’s rings and moons won’t disappear (at least not on a human time scale). And with the onset of summer, the planet rises earlier and rises higher in the sky at a more reasonable time. For example, by the end of June in many places it rises around midnight, and by the end of August it reaches the sky, watching the golden spot: it rises at sunset and does not sleep all night.

Through binoculars, Saturn may appear elongated or oval due to its rings. A sharper image in a small telescope will allow the rings to be seen more clearly. Using one of them, you could even detect a couple of the planet’s moons; its largest, Titan, is larger than Mercury and usually appears as a dim “star” adjacent to Saturn.

If you can stand the early hours to look at the gas giant, take a moment to contemplate what you really see. Pale, sparkling ball, so small in our sky, a giant that is nine times wider than Earth and 95 times more massive. And despite centuries of observation, we are still learning about this ring-shaped marvel.

Saturn is iconic among its planetary siblings because of its rings, of course. Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune also have rings, but they are thin, faint, and difficult to see without spaceships or powerful telescopes. Saturn’s rings stretch an incredible 175,000 miles (282,000 kilometers) across – three-quarters the distance between Earth and our Moon!

Although they appear solid, Saturn’s rings are actually made up of countless chunks of near-pure water ice, likely the remains of a broken moon. The largest pieces are probably less than ten meters across…most of them are more like the size of ice cubes you put in drinks.. While the rings do not appear to have changed at all since humans began observing them through telescopes in the 1600s, their age and lifespan were contentious issues among experts for much of that time.

Recently, evidence has been accumulating that the rings are much younger than the planet itself, at about 4.5 billion years. The Cassini mission provided most of the data for this; the spacecraft orbited the planet for 13 years and sent a huge amount of information to Earth.

new research just published in the Journal of Planetary Science Icarus, reinforces the notion that rings are not only young, but won’t last forever.

Micrometeoroids—tiny space rocks hurtling through the solar system—were the key to this new chronology. When they collide with particles in Saturn’s rings, there are two general consequences. First, micrometeoroid dust contaminates and darkens the intact water ice of the rings. Second, these small collisions drain the orbital energy of the ring particles, which in turn move inward toward Saturn. Together, these effects should cause the particles of the rings to become dirty over time and eventually rain down on Saturn itself.

With the Cassini data in hand, the scientists estimated these effects and found that the rings are probably no more than 120 million years old, which is quite young for a planetary system. they would have seen Saturn without the rings!

The researchers also found that the rings are breaking down at a rate that means they will disappear somewhere between 15 and 400 million years. This is a long time by human standards, but still only a fraction of the age of the solar system.

Ironically, although Saturn’s rings are disappearing, it seems to have a growing number of moons. It’s not so literal or physical – we’re just getting better at finding them.

Scientists have just announced a new passage of 62 satellites around Saturn, bringing the planet’s total to over 140, surpassing Jupiter’s previous record of around 90.

Researchers did spot many of these satellites in observations made in 2019. using smart technology to improve their visibility, but these tiny satellites were very faint and barely moved between observations. To confirm them, astronomers needed more data. Over the past two years, they have done just that and fixed the reality of satellites, most of which are only a few kilometers in diameter.

How many moons does Saturn actually have? Well, it depends on what you mean by “moon”. Of course, there are hundreds of them, maybe thousands more than a kilometer or so. But if we consider each ring particle as a moon, then the answer is: trillions. The problem here is that we don’t have a good definition of what makes a moon, especially as to what the lower size limit might be. So in that sense, trying to decide which planet has the most of them is a bit silly.

But still, if you get out early and look at Saturn in the predawn spring sky, remember that you are now armed with knowledge that astronomers would have envied just a few decades ago. Hundreds of mountain-sized moons surround Saturn. His rings are young and fleeting. In a very real sense, we are lucky that we see them at all.

DArren Hawkes knows exactly why he wanted to create Chelsea flower show garden who admits that life is full of fear, pain and loneliness: “When we are in despair, we all feel alone. It seems to us that this despair is not a shared experience, but a personal one. And so by placing the experience in three dimensions in a public space, there is a chance that it might remind someone that they are not alone. That there are other people who have experienced it.”

Hawkes, an award-winning garden designer, regularly dedicates his free time to calmly confront this fact. He lost friends to suicide and volunteers at the helpline for the Samaritans suicide prevention charity, to which he dedicated his show garden. “This is not a real garden. I wouldn’t design this garden for a Samaritan center. But if, as an exhibition garden, it helps convey some of the life experiences of people who reach out and call the Samaritans, it starts a dialogue.”

The idea of ​​a garden – or at least the feelings it would evoke – came to him like fragments of a dream, and the space is conceived as something otherworldly, even nightmarish. At the entrance, reinforced concrete slabs hang “uncomfortably low” on thin nylon wires, which Hawkes himself gave a frightening shape. Unfamiliar, thorny, spiky, thorny plants, including thorny, towering form Aralia chapenskaya, a rare shrub – and a lot of dark red foliage crowd the visitor. “It’s the color you fall into that draws you in rather than being drawn to you.”

There is only one way to escape: along a path pitted with deep cracks, where you can hear the sound of rushing water. “We can’t see the water, we only hear this crazy noise.” Ahead, a “vortex whirlwind”-like sculpture of over 3,000 recycled nails appears to fly out of the shattered earth, creating a sense of premonition or even menace. “There is a feeling: “Is everything closed on me? Is the ground cracking under me? What lies underneath?'”

Hawkes wanted to create a garden in Chelsea that would serve as a polemic against the perfectly manicured, manicured beauty of other designs. “A lot of what we do in the garden reflects the good times, the feeling of contentment, happiness and peace,” he says. “So if you’ve experienced loneliness, loss, self-loathing – what does it feel like?”

So many gardens in Chelsea are designed to be peaceful and comfortable places. “I was interested in doing something more complex, more authentic, something that involved conflict or struggle.”

Experiencing pain and suffering can change your perception of the beauty of nature and encourage you to enjoy the joy of life. “There are moments of absolute bliss in our struggles in life, when suddenly life in its pain is revealed as something so precious.” He quotes people living in war-torn parts of the world who find solace in seeing flowers bloom amid ruins and destruction. “Plants and garden decorations can be a place of hope for people in the darkest of times.”

Like unpleasant feelings and conversations, this is a garden that you cannot ignore. “At the front, you have to look ahead, evaluate and think: “Am I ready to step into this? Because I see something beautiful beyond it.” At the end of a winding narrow path, behind densely populated concrete and prickly thorns, the garden opens into a welcoming retreat. At the back of an L-shaped bench, sits under the canopy of a small-leaved elm. It provides a “listening space” where people can “talk, be heard, and gain insight into their struggles.”

Hawks hopes that people who have experienced anxiety, sadness, fear, insecurity and depression will feel a “sense of recognition” when they see the garden, a rare opportunity to openly connect with these negative emotions that is not often offered in public spaces. “We do not outwardly demonstrate these feelings and experiences because we are ashamed of them or we feel that they need to be overcome. And when we get over them, we really don’t want to go back to them.”

His words resonate with me. My mother, Pnina Werbner, recently died, and I am constantly struggling with a huge sense of loss, especially in public. I understand exactly what he is talking about and how isolating such feelings can be. When I have dark thoughtsa common reaction to bereavement, reading poetry about grief helped me feel less alone. I ask Hawkes if his garden is meant to be a poem about loss? “Are you trying to show that whatever you’re going through, other people understand that this garden understands?”

“Yes, it is,” he says. “Thank you, that’s all.” He gives me a worried look, as if my questions bother him. He lost two of his friends to suicide when he was in his early 20s, and looking back, he feels like he could have done more. “There were signs. But I danced uncertainly around them when they were alive and down and struggling.”

He would like, for example, that he tries more to take one friend for a walk and checks on him more often. “I called him and offered things, but of course he was never going to say yes. With his other girlfriend, he could not understand how hard it was for her. “At the time, I was a bit self-centered.”

Now, thanks to his training as a Samaritan volunteer, he knows how to listen properly. “Real listening means paying attention to everything you are told. It’s not just the words they use. It’s the pauses between them, shortness of breath, things left unsaid or little clues you can find in one phrase.”

According to him, he is trying to arouse sympathy in his subscribers, not sympathy. “Empathy can be patronizing and condescending and assume everything will be fine.” This approach is useless because it is false. On the contrary, “Empathy says, ‘I’m here. I am here with you, next to you. I don’t pity you. But now I will sit with you, and I will be comfortable if I feel uncomfortable.

He hopes that his garden will become a sensitive place for difficult emotional conversations, like a Samaritan helpline. “There is no danger that by talking about suicide you will encourage someone to commit suicide. In fact, it’s probably the other way around. Sometimes it can help to just give people a chance to talk about their feelings.”

If visitors find that their garden evokes emotion, he hopes they will leave with a sense of pride in their resilience. “There were times in my life when I was really lonely and lost. And don’t forget about it.” It was a long time ago, he says, when he was a young man trying to make it in the world and feeling intense self-hatred and low self-esteem. He doesn’t talk about it often. “It was terrible and I don’t want to go back there. But I also know that for many years it gave me a fire in my stomach that I used every day as fuel: “How can I rise above this struggle? How can I be stronger?

To convey this difficult emotional journey that many Samaritan callers must go through, and to show the difference that time and perspective can make, the back of each rough slab of useless concrete in Hawkes Garden has been lovingly polished, carved and inlaid with gold. “When you go through them, you see that the very obstacles that seemed intimidating and difficult are actually very valuable things – things that, on reflection, you may want to hold on to later.”

It also serves as an analogy for how valuable Samaritan volunteers view the lives of their callers: “It’s a metaphor for taking people who don’t think their lives are worth living and saying, ‘You’re important enough to me right now.’ listen to you. I will listen to everything you tell me. And I don’t care.”

At the end of the interview, he makes a decision. He invites me to talk quietly about myself. I tell him about my mother. He listens and he listens. And I cry.

The Samaritans Listening Garden, designed by Darren Hawkes, is at the Chelsea Flower Show until May 27. The Samaritans can be contacted toll free on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org.

In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted by calling toll-free 116 123 or emailing jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Helpline at 800-273-8255 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to contact an emergency telephone advisor. In Australia, the Crisis Helpline is on 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org.