Loosen your tie chaps... wearing one cuts off blood to the brain!
THE rise of the open-necked shirt might offend sartorial traditionalists.
But it seems there may be good health grounds if not to ditch ties then to loosen them significantly. Neurologists have found that wearing a tie cuts off the flow of blood to a man’s brain in only 15 minutes.
Researchers exploring the effects of ‘socially desirable strangulation’ split a group of 30 healthy men into 15 wearing a collared shirt and tie and 15 without.
Those in ties had brain scans before putting them on, while wearing them and after removing them. For all but two men, blood flow to the brain fell in volume.
The average drop was 8 per cent, but for five men it was 10 per cent and for one it was 20 per cent.
The ties were tied with a Windsor knot, tightened to the point of slight discomfort.
Dr Janne Gierthmuhlen, who led the study at the University Hospital SchleswigHolstein in Germany, said: ‘A reduction of blood flow means parts of the brain will function less well. For men wearing ties at work, this could have an impact on their thinking, decisions and writing skills.
‘If this effect was seen after 15 minutes, it would be interesting to see the effect after an eight or ten-hour day in the office.’
The researchers, whose study appears in the journal Neuroradiology and was published in New Scientist magazine, are now studying how ties affect men with conditions such as high blood pressure.
The modern tie is widely thought to have its origins in the Thirty Years War in the 1630s when an early version of it was worn by Croatian mercenaries hired to fight the cause of the French king Louis XIII.
While schoolboys today never tire of finding unusual ways to wear them, Swedish mathematician Mikael Vejdemo- Johansson has calculated that there are in theory 177,147 ways to tie a tie.