Monday, March 3, 2008

Motion Sick from Ball Chairs

I had read that using exercise balls as office chairs was supposedly good for your posture and core muscles — you're constantly making minute adjustments to stay balanced. I'd noticed some used (and unused) ball-cum-chairs in others' offices and was curious if they were all they were cracked up to be. So I asked my coworker Rachel if I could borrow hers. (She has one in her office but I've never seen her use it.) She said sure, so I brought the thing back to my office.

I'll admit, it was fun for a few minutes, bouncing around at my desk and generally feeling pretty silly. :) But as I settled down and started to just use it as a chair, I noticed that I was developing a headache. I was actually getting motion sick from the darn thing! My inner ear sure is picky — to the list that includes elevators and car acceleration, I can now add exercise balls. :(

Thus ended that short-lived experiment in alternative office furniture.

I later googled around about the benefits of ball chairs and found (surprise, surprise) that not everyone agrees.

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