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I’m a Chronic Sloucher. These Posture Correctors Changed That

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I’m a Chronic Sloucher. These Posture Correctors Changed That


Compare Top 5 Posture Correctors

How We Test Posture Correctors

We tested each posture corrector, wearing them through the routines of daily life—from sitting at a desk to running errands and working out—for both short and long periods, over several months. No one wants to feel like they’re strapped into armor, so we evaluated wearability by focusing on comfort, breathable materials, and adjustability. Material quality was a priority, and we kept an eye out for signs of wear or damage after consistent use. Size inclusivity was another major factor; we sought options that catered to a range of body types. To ensure accessibility, we also made sure to test different types of posture correctors, from traditional braces to supportive bras and tech-enhanced wearables. Since there isn’t much clinical data comparing these gadgets, we learned by firsthand experience: Did we personally feel a noticeable difference in our posture?

More Accessories to Try

Photograph: Branch

Branch Adjustable Laptop Stand for $65: If you work at a desk, a simple change is to set it up to be as ergonomic as possible. This laptop stand from Branch is our favorite. It’s easily adjustable in height and angle, and super sturdy. If you can also add a monitor with a separate keyboard and mouse, you can be even more comfortable sitting upright. If you have a bigger budget, consider a standing desk and a great desk chair—we’ve tested several in our Best Home Office Gear guide.

Gaiam Yoga Strap for $10: If you already own a long yoga strap, you can easily make your own shoulder strap posture brace for temporary use—a yoga teacher recommended this to me for use during a class. Everyday Yoga also sells some affordable options, but all of them work basically the same. According to yoga teacher Kathryn Budig: Wrap the strap around your back, right around the base of your shoulder blade or bra line, and pull the excess out evenly in front of you. Bring each end over your shoulders and crisscross them behind you, making an X shape on your back. Bring the straps around to the front, pulling your shoulders back, and buckle it in the front. The length of the strap you’ll need depends on your body, including shoulder and chest size, but we recommend at least 10 feet. Anything smaller will likely be more painful than helpful.

Final Tips and Advice

Try yoga and other exercises. A sedentary lifestyle is a one-way ticket to bad posture. Yoga, in particular, has been touted as a means to better posture. When I’m consistent with my practice, I notice I sit and stand taller outside of the studio, almost instinctively. If you’re not into yoga, core-strengthening exercises like planks and chest presses are also an option. Alternatively, just incorporating morning stretches into your routine will work wonders.

Seek a medical professional. A doctor, physical therapist, or chiropractor can help you find a corrector that supports your body’s problem areas‚ or steer you toward an alternative solution that does. Also, if you have severe neck or lower back pain, kyphosis, or scoliosis, always consult a healthcare professional before trying any at-home remedies.

Frequently Asked Questions

Your spine naturally has three curves: at your neck (cervical spine), mid-back (thoracic spine), and lower back (lumbar spine). Proper alignment shouldn’t add extra curvature to any of these sections. Here are some general guidelines:

  • Your head should be above your shoulders, and the top of your shoulders should be above your hips. If you’re standing, keep your feet hip-distance apart. Most of your weight should be on the balls of your feet.
  • If you’re sitting, keep your feet flat on the floor, knees bent at 90 degrees, and your ankles separated. If you can’t reach the floor, a footrest can help.

The writers at the Natural Posture explain that poor posture—sitting with your shoulders forward—causes the soft muscles in your chest to get tight, which in turn makes it feel uncomfortable to sit up straight. Bad posture isn’t just about slouching. Poor alignment can also come from genetics, injuries, or repetitive movements. “A wrong posture is anything for too long,” according to Smith.

We slouch over screens, lug totes on one dominant shoulder, and lean on one hip while standing. Your workstation setup often hinders your posture, and how you sit matters too. Are your feet flat on the ground, with your knees and hips at a 90-degree angle? Or are you, like me, guilty of tucking one leg under the other? Over time, these habits throw your body out of balance. Here are some tips on how to set up your desk ergonomically for working or gaming.

How do posture correctors work?

Posture correctors aren’t a one-size-fits-all cure for slouching or hunched backs. Think of them as little gentle wake-up calls for your muscles—the ones that have been slacking off while you hunch over your laptop. These tools come in all shapes and designs, but the best ones address the muscle imbalances created by our everyday habits. They’re not supposed to hold you in place (and if they do, that’s a red flag). Overly rigid correctors can actually weaken your muscles by doing all the work for you.

Instead, posture correctors are more like training wheels. They guide your body toward better alignment and then let your muscles take over. “I would compare it to when you were a kid and your mom poked you to sit up straight at the dinner table,” says physician Matthew Smith. “The goal is not to wear this forever. The goal is to be able to change your posture on your own from here on out.”

Are posture correctors safe to use daily?

Yes(ish), but not all day, and you wouldn’t want to. Posture correctors are designed for short-term use. Wearing one all day can backfire by weakening your core and making your body reliant on an external crutch. “I would only pop it on for a few minutes here and there as a reminder,” Smith recommends.

Some posture-correcting bras and wearable devices are gentler, making them better suited for longer periods, but these are often the exception. To be safe, refer to the specific product’s instructions. I’ve found them helpful in short bursts—like when I’m at my desk or cooking dinner. As Smith puts it: “We’re just trying to remind ourselves to come back and fight against gravity.”

What are we testing next?

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Lenovo’s Latest Wacky Concepts Include a Laptop With a Built-In Portable Monitor

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Lenovo’s Latest Wacky Concepts Include a Laptop With a Built-In Portable Monitor


Do you like having a second screen with your computer setup? What if your laptop could carry a second screen for you? That’s the idea behind Lenovo’s latest proof of concept, the ThinkBook Modular AI PC, announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Lenovo is never shy to show off wacky, weird concept laptops. We’ve seen a PC with a transparent screen, one with a rollable OLED screen, a swiveling screen, and another with a flippy screen. At CES earlier this year, the company showed off a gaming laptop with a display that expands at the push of a button. Sometimes, these concepts turn into real products that go on sale (often in limited quantities).

At MWC 2026, Lenovo trotted out three concepts. While it’s unclear whether any of them will become real, purchasable products, there’s some unique utility here, and a peek at how computing experiences could change in the future.

A Laptop With a Built-In Portable Screen

The ThinkBook Modular AI PC has a second screen hanging magnetically off the back of the laptop, and it can show content to people sitting in front of you.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

Image may contain Computer Electronics Laptop Pc Computer Hardware Computer Keyboard Hardware Monitor and Screen

This is with the second screen removed from the back and placed in front of the main display. The keyboard is removable and works via Bluetooth.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

As someone with a multi-screen setup at home and a fondness for portable monitors, the ThinkBook Modular AI PC appeals to me the most. At first glance, it looks like a normal laptop. Take a look behind, and you’ll notice there’s a second screen magnetically hanging off the back of the laptop, like a koala carrying a baby on its back.

The screen is connected to the laptop using pogo-pin connectors, so you can use it in this state to display content to people in front of you, say, if you were making a presentation during a meeting. Alternatively, you can pop this second screen off, remove a hidden kickstand resting under the laptop, and magnetically attach it to the 14-inch screen so that you have a traditional portable monitor experience. (You’ll need to connect this to the laptop via a USB-C cable in this orientation.)

If you don’t have the desk space for that orientation, you can always remove the keyboard from the base and pop the second screen there—it’ll auto-connect to the laptop via the pogo pins, and you’ll be able to use the Bluetooth keyboard to type on a dual-screen setup that resembles the Asus ZenBook Duo. The whole system is a fantastically portable method of improving productivity on the go, and the laptop isn’t too thick or cumbersome.



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The 5 Big ‘Known Unknowns’ of Donald Trump’s New War With Iran

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The 5 Big ‘Known Unknowns’ of Donald Trump’s New War With Iran


More recently, Iran has been a regular adversary in cyberspace—and while it hasn’t demonstrated quite the acuity of Russia or China, Iran is “good at finding ways to maximize the impact of their capabilities,” says Jeff Greene, the former executive assistant director of cybersecurity at CISA. Iran, in particular, famously was responsible for a series of distributed-denial-of-service attacks on Wall Street institutions that worried financial markets, and its 2012 attack on Saudi Aramco and Qatar’s Rasgas marked some of the earliest destructive infrastructure cyberattacks.

Today, surely, Iran is weighing which of these tools, networks, and operatives it might press into a response—and where, exactly, that response might come. Given its history of terror campaigns and cyberattacks, there’s no reason to think that Iran’s retaliatory options are limited to missiles alone—or even to the Middle East at all.

Which leads to the biggest known unknown of all:

5. How does this end? There’s an apocryphal story about a 1970s conversation between Henry Kissinger and a Chinese leader—it’s told variously as either Mao-Tse Tung or Zhou Enlai. Asked about the legacy of the French revolution, the Chinese leader quipped, “Too soon to tell.” The story almost surely didn’t happen, but it’s useful in speaking to a larger truth particularly in societies as old as the 2,500-year-old Persian empire: History has a long tail.

As much as Trump (and the world) might hope that democracy breaks out in Iran this spring, the CIA’s official assessment in February was that if Khamenei was killed, he would be likely replaced with hardline figures from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. And indeed, the fact that Iran’s retaliatory strikes against other targets in the Middle East continued throughout Saturday, even after the death of many senior regime officials—including, purportedly, the defense minister—belied the hope that the government was close to collapse.

The post-World War II history of Iran has surely hinged on three moments and its intersections with American foreign policy—the 1953 CIA coup, the 1979 revolution that removed the shah, and now the 2026 US attacks that have killed its supreme leader. In his recent bestselling book King of Kings, on the fall of the shah, longtime foreign correspondent Scott Anderson writes of 1979, “If one were to make a list of that small handful of revolutions that spurred change on a truly global scale in the modern era, that caused a paradigm shift in the way the world works, to the American, French, and Russian Revolutions might be added the Iranian.”

It is hard not to think today that we are living through a moment equally important in ways that we cannot yet fathom or imagine—and that we should be especially wary of any premature celebration or declarations of success given just how far-reaching Iran’s past turmoils have been.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly bragged about how he sees the military and Trump administration’s foreign policy as sending a message to America’s adversaries: “F-A-F-O,” playing off the vulgar colloquialism. Now, though, it’s the US doing the “F-A” portion in the skies over Iran—and the long arc of Iran’s history tells us that we’re a long, long way from the “F-O” part where we understand the consequences.


Let us know what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor at mail@wired.com.



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This Backyard Smoker Delivers Results Even a Pitmaster Would Approve Of

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This Backyard Smoker Delivers Results Even a Pitmaster Would Approve Of


While my love of smoked meats is well-documented, my own journey into actually tending the fire started just last spring when I jumped at the opportunity to review the Traeger Woodridge Pro. When Recteq came calling with a similar offer to check out the Flagship 1600, I figured it would be a good way to stay warm all winter.

While the two smokers have a lot in common, the Recteq definitely feels like an upgrade from the Traeger I’ve been using. Not only does it have nearly twice the cooking space, but the huge pellet hopper, rounded barrel, and proper smokestack help me feel like a real pitmaster.

The trade-off is losing some of the usability features that make the Woodridge Pro a great first smoker. The setup isn’t as quite as simple, and the larger footprint and less ergonomic conditions require a little more experience or patience. With both options, excellent smoked meat is just a few button presses away, but speaking as someone with both in their backyard, I’ve been firing up the Recteq more often.

Getting Settled

Photograph: Brad Bourque

Setting up the Recteq wasn’t as time-consuming as the Woodridge, but it was more difficult to manage on my own. Some of the steps, like attaching the bull horns to the lid, or flipping the barrel onto its stand, would really benefit from a patient friend or loved one. Like most smokers, you’ll need to run a burn-in cycle at 400 degrees Fahrenheit to make sure there’s nothing left over from manufacturing or shipping. Given the amount of setup time and need to cool down the smoker after, I would recommend setting this up Friday afternoon if you want to smoke on a Saturday.



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