Speaking of good chairs... we've been told all our lives: Don't slouch. Sit up straight. Well, someone finally did some actual engineering-type tests on that, and turns out for your spine, the best position is... slouched and leaning back. Puts the least stress on the spine from compression and gravity. Probably helps the other joints and muscles too.
I have an old rattan deck chair (originally rescued from the trash), it's a huge tilted half-circle that I fill up with pillows til it's angled right -- anyway I can sit in this thing for 8 hours without getting stiff, day in and day out. It's an eyesore and a floor hog and I keep trying to throw it out and replace it, but nothing else works quite as good. Well, now that I've seen the above study, I know why -- it keeps me slouched back at an angle and (per what I wrote earlier) has support for my elbows so I can just lay my hands in my lap to type. And it sits low enough that my knees aren't hanging down and putting torque on my back (a problem with higher chairs, making a footstool necessity).
