Many people do these unconscious "bad habits" every day.

With the improvement of health awareness, more and more people are trying to quit behaviors that harm the body, such as "staying up late" and "overeating".

But at the same time, there are also some "bad habits" hidden in the details of daily life such as sitting, lying, eating, and dressing. Inadvertently, our bodies have buried large and small mines. Take a look at these bad habits that many people often do, but will hurt the body if done for a long time. Have you fallen into these traps?

When cooking

Fry until the pan starts to smoke.

When cooking, experienced people will wait until the oil pan starts to smoke before adding onions, ginger and garlic to "stir-fry" the pan, and then add the vegetables and stir-fry. This will indeed make the taste better, but it may also pose a safety hazard.

For example, when the oil smokes, the oil temperature has mostly reached above 200 degrees Celsius. At this time, the cooking oil may produce trans fatty acids. There is no need to describe its harmful effects on the human body. The World Health Organization reminds that it can block arteries and increase the risk of heart attacks and death.

In addition, starchy foods, fatty foods, and protein-rich foods will produce different carcinogens when exposed to excessively high temperatures.

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Long-term side sleeping

When tossing and turning in sleep, many people tend to toss and turn to find the most comfortable position, and side sleeping is obviously the most popular one.

Data shows that side sleeping accounts for 70% of sleeping postures. For most people, occasional side sleeping is not a big problem. For people who snore for a long time, side sleeping can still relieve the problem to a certain extent. However, when it becomes a long-term behavior, it may bring many risks.

First of all, it may lead to a series of problems such as scoliosis. When lying on your side, the weight of the body will be concentrated on the two main areas of the shoulder and neck and hips, and the spine will continue to bear pressure due to deviation from the neutral position. In the long run, it will lead to scoliosis, lumbar disc herniation, sacroiliac joint disorder and other problems. The latter is a common cause of low back pain in women.

Secondly, it will increase facial wrinkles, especially nasolabial folds.

Studies have shown that when lying on your side for a long time, your facial skin will be squeezed and stacked more under the action of pressure and tension than when lying down. People spend one-third of their lives in bed, which means that your facial skin will experience repeated squeezing and stretching, so compression wrinkles or sleep wrinkles are also generated.

As we age, collagen is lost, the dermis ages, and the skin's ability to relieve sleep wrinkles will also decline. Therefore, using the right sleeping posture may be more important than expensive skin care products.

Standing on one leg for a long time

When waiting in line for too long or standing for a long time due to work requirements, many people tend to put their center of gravity on one leg. In the short term, it can indeed relieve fatigue in the legs and feet, but in the long run, it will trigger "muscle compensation" and cause bigger problems.

Muscle compensation refers to the situation where when the human body maintains a certain posture or performs a certain movement, the muscles that should play a role cannot function normally, causing other muscles to work instead and compensate for its missing function.

You should know that various parts of our body work together and have a clear division of labor. No part can completely replace other parts. When the compensation mode is entered for a long time and a certain part is under greater pressure, it will cause muscle and joint strain, and will affect other parts of the body.

Standing on one leg will cause different forces on both sides of the body. In order to maintain body balance, the compensation parts may even involve the muscles and joints of the upper body. In the long run, it will cause problems such as scoliosis, pelvic tilt or uneven shoulders.

Chronic unilateral chewing

Some people are accustomed to chewing food with teeth on one side when eating, which will not only damage the teeth, but also affect the facial skin and even joints.

First of all, normal chewing behavior actually has a massage and self-cleaning effect on the teeth. If one side of the teeth is not used for a long time and cannot be rubbed by food, it will easily accumulate tartar and cause periodontal problems.

Secondly, people frequently use their masticatory muscles when chewing food. Long-term unilateral chewing will make the muscles on one side appear developed due to excessive "exercise", while the muscles on the other side will appear weak due to frequent "laziness". In contrast, it is easy to cause an "uneven face" situation, which is not beautiful no matter how you look at it.

In addition, chewing uses not a single joint but linked joints. Long-term unilateral chewing may lead to a series of joint problems including discomfort in opening the mouth and clicking.

The most important thing is that unilateral chewing is sometimes not just a natural habit, but may be due to discomfort in the teeth on one side, so you actively choose to chew with the teeth on the other side. This action will cover up certain oral problems.

In order to prevent the above situations, when eating, it is best to distribute the food to the teeth on both sides relatively evenly so that they can divide the work reasonably.

Cross your legs

Crossing your legs is probably one of the most widely used postures. No matter where you are, as long as you sit down, you will instinctively cross one leg over the other. Its advantage is "comfort", and its disadvantage is that except for "comfort", everything else is disadvantageous.

First, when you cross your legs, the left and right sides of your body will be unevenly stressed, which will cause a compensatory pattern in the spine. Over time, this can easily lead to spinal deformity, scoliosis, pelvic tilt, and lumbar disc herniation. In addition, it will increase the pressure inside the knee joint and affect the nutrient absorption of cartilage.

Secondly, when one leg is pressed on the other leg, the venous blood return of the lower limbs will be affected, causing high blood pressure. Healthy people may not have too many problems, but for people who already have high blood pressure or diabetes, crossing their legs for a long time is very dangerous.

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Playing with mobile phone in toilet

Many people have the habit of playing with their mobile phones while using the toilet. From a physiological point of view, this behavior is also harmful.

This will make you forget the time and sit for a long time. When the blood is concentrated in the lower limbs, when you stand up suddenly, cerebral ischemia will occur, making you dizzy and swollen. If you have cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, long-term sitting and squatting will increase myocardial oxygen consumption.

At the same time, maintaining the posture of defecation for a long time will cause continuous congestion in the anus, which is easy to induce hemorrhoids. In addition, if it is in a squat toilet in a public toilet, the impact is even greater. When squatting, the pressure on the knees is more than 3 times the body weight. Maintaining this posture for a long time may cause knee joint damage.

Turn off the lights before going to bed and play with your phone

Turning off the lights and checking the phone before going to bed has become the most common habit of modern people. This will not only cause increased intraocular pressure, visual fatigue, and dry eye syndrome, but may also increase the difference in vision between the two eyes, leading to amblyopia and strabismus.

Moreover, the sound, light information and content you come into contact with through the mobile phone screen before going to bed may keep your brain stimulated and awake at all times, which will not only make you prone to insomnia, but also make you "more tired the more you sleep."

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Sleep with night light on

Some people are used to sleeping with night lights on because they feel "insecure" or "afraid of the trouble of getting up at night", which also leads to a series of risks. Recently, a study with more than 80,000 participants and an average follow-up time of more than seven years showed that the risk of diabetes is not only related to diet, but also to the exposure to artificial light at night. Specifically, the stronger the light at night, the higher the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The study divided the participants into four categories according to the degree of exposure to light at night: 0%~50%, 50%~70%, 70%~90%, and 90%~100%. The results showed that the latter three situations had a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, and the highest was the 90%~100% group, which had a 67% higher risk of disease than the 0%~50% group. For safety reasons, it is better to reduce unnecessary light exposure when sleeping at night, such as choosing a night light with a sensor control device, or lowering the brightness of the night light and putting it as far away as possible.

References

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https://santarosapainandperformance.com/eliminating-the-pain-of-muscular-compensation-patterns/

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[13]https://www.who.int/zh/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/trans-fat

[14]https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/science-38725405

Planning and production

Author: Li Mi, popular science creator

Reviewer: Tang Qin, Director of the Science Popularization Department of the Chinese Medical Association, National Health Science Popularization Expert