From when you were rocked gently on your mother's knee to when you used to tip your cheap plastic school chair back as far as it would go – there's something irresistible about a chair that you can rock out in. Pictured above is an attractive Scandi looking design from The Futon Company, reasonably priced at £179. Below left is the classic Eames rocker which not only looks great but is a practical, compact size. This one is £400 from The Conran Shop but cheaper copies are available elsewhere. More traditional and perhaps more bedroomy is the Hampton rattan chair from Maisons du Monde, priced at 199 Euros.

Going all out for innovation with this oldest of products is the ingenious Takeshi Nii folding rocker, below left, $550 from Canoe and, below right, the sinuous Ron Arad designed Voido chair by Magis. Priced at £413 it also comes in yellow, grey and green.

The gorgeous chair below is by Colin O'Dowd and can be ordered directly from his website for £650.

More ingenious still are these multi function prototypes. The first by, Ontwerpduo, incorporates a cradle while the Murakami Rocking Chair by German product desiner Rochus Jacob, powers a reading lamp with the kinetic energy of the rocker. The third, by Ooms, is a fitting which converts any chair into a rocking chair.

All very clever and useful but the thing is  – it's the sitting doing nothing that rocks.