Maintaining a particular posture for many, many hours can however lead to a condition called peroneal nerve palsy resulting in “foot drop” where you can’t lift the front part of your foot and toes. But when a study from South Korea examined a series of patients’ notes in order to identify the chief causes, sitting on a chair with one knee over the other didn’t feature. Sitting cross-legged on the floor for hours at a time did. In reality long term numbness is an unlikely consequence of leg-crossing because as soon as we feel uncomfortable we tend to move.
