Study: Standing up straight could help depression

By Elizabeth Keatinge, Buzz60

Results of a new study suggest depressed people can improve their condition by standing up straighter.

Good posture benefits people with mild to moderate depression, according to researchers at the University of Auckland.

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Researchers studied 61 people with mild to moderate depression and assigned them to either an upright posture group or a usual posture group.

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They even put tape on their backs to help those in the first group maintain perfect posture.

Then, both groups undertook the stressful tasks of making a five-minute speech and counting backwards from 1,022 in groups of 13.

According to the study's co-author, people sitting upright were more awake and enthusiastic than those who sat in their usual posture.

The people standing upright also used more words and fewer first-person singular nouns, words such as "me" and "I."

All of this suggests that those with straight backs were more energetic, had a less negative mood and were less self-focused.

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