A new study in New Zealand shows that patients with depressive symptoms may sit up straight according to the old advice, thus temporarily improving their mood. However, the researchers warned that this finding is preliminary, and it is not clear whether upright posture really helps to improve mood. Researchers at the University of Auckland wrote in their paper: "In the process of treating depression, or if this effect lasts for a long time, changing posture is a simple, highly acceptable and low-risk intervention, which can be used alone or together with other therapies." It will be published in the Journal of Behavioral Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry on March 20 17. However, they say that more research is needed to confirm these findings, especially in clinical settings outside the laboratory.

The researchers say that previous studies have found that bending posture is a feature of depression. In addition, other studies show that upright posture can improve the mood and self-esteem of people without depression, but few studies pay attention to how posture changes affect depressed patients. [Posture Guide: 7 Suggestions for Breaking Bad Habits]

This study involved 6 1 person, and their scores in a survey showed that they had mild to moderate depressive symptoms. (These participants are not necessarily diagnosed as depression by doctors. The researchers excluded people who had been treated for depression and people with severe symptoms of depression.

About half of the participants received instructions on how to take a good posture (sit up straight), and the researchers also put sports tape on the participants' backs to improve their posture. The other half of the subjects didn't get any instructions about posture, and put a few pieces of tape on their backs in a random way that was not considered helpful for posture.

All subjects were told that the purpose of this study was to examine the influence of sports videos on their thinking ability. The researchers told the subjects that the wrong premise is to reduce the chances of the subjects experiencing the placebo effect, or that people expect the effective results of the treatment, not the effect of the treatment itself. Generally speaking, at the beginning of the study,

Compared with the single sample without depressive symptoms, participants are more inclined to bend over.

After the researchers used sports tapes, they were asked to fill out a survey aimed at measuring their emotions. The researchers found that people in the upright posture group felt more enthusiastic, excited and stronger than those in the normal posture group. People in the upright posture group also feel less tired than those in the normal posture group.

Next, the researchers want to see if the upright posture helps people's mood under pressure. Therefore, they asked participants to take a stress test, including giving a speech in front of a group of examiners. Participants only have 3 minutes to prepare their speeches. Afterwards, the examiner asked the participants to complete a complex mental arithmetic task. [Seven different ways of depression for men and women]

The researchers found that after the participants completed the stress test, there was no significant difference in mood between the upright posture group and the conventional posture group. The researchers speculate that this may be because the task is too stressful for all participants.

However, the study did find that people in the upright posture group talked more and used the word "I" less than those in the normal posture group. Previous studies have found that