NPR

Can't Get Comfortable In Your Chair? Here's What You Can Do

Chair design shifted dramatically about a hundred years ago, and it hasn't been good for our backs. Our daily lives are filled with chairs that make our posture worse. Luckily, we've got hacks.
Jean Couch, 75, perches on the edge of a chair at her home in Los Altos Hills, Calif. She teaches people the art of sitting in chairs without back pain.

About a hundred years ago, something devious started happening in our homes and offices, in our cars and at restaurants — and our backs have never been the same.

For hundreds — even thousands of years — chairs were made of wood. Maybe the seat was covered with cord or cattail leaves, and if you were rich, you could afford some padded upholstery, which began to take off in the 17th and 18th centuries.

But for most of Western history, people sat on chairs that were relatively firm, flat and proportioned for the human body.

Then in the 20th

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