How does posture affect your health?
Stand up straight! Stop slouching! We’ve all seen someone slouched over with their head forward and a hump back, but having good posture does more than help us look fantastic! It’s also a big part of our health. So what’s the big deal?
Good posture is more than just standing up straight. It consists of ideal alignment of the hips, spinal joints, shoulders, neck and head. When working well, this allows the force of gravity to travel down the body evenly. On the flip side, poor posture is when your spine strays from this ideal alignment. This begins to stress the muscles, bones and ligaments of the spine and causes the brain to work harder to hold you upright! For every centimetre your head moves forward, 2kg of effective weight is added to your head. In practice, this commonly causes strain on the muscles, joints, ligaments and nerves of the neck and shoulders. This can also result in the onset of tension like headaches as well as many other aches and pains. Unfortunately, in the long term, poor posture can promote accelerated aging of the spinal joints.
And it’s not just muscles and ligaments that are damaged with poor posture. With forward head carriage (where the head is in front of your shoulders), you can lose up to 30% of your vital lung capacity (the amount of air you can breathe in). Not the best if you’re an athlete or someone who breaks a sweat.
The good news is that good posture is more energy efficient and less demanding on the muscles, and has also been linked to increased mental performance, attention, memory and thinking.
Can posture improve your mood and how you feel each day?
Yes! Our brain is wired up so that our posture reflects how we feel, and how we feel can be seen in our posture. Let me explain this; Shoulders rounded, head forward and slumped. This type of posture actually causes your brain to think you’re unhappy (even if you’re not). Interestingly, if you are unhappy, you are also more likely to adopt this slumped posture. On the up side of this, if you have a posture that is upright, you are more likely to feel happier and better about yourself (not to mention, look happier as well). So if you’re feeling down, try to pull your shoulders back, put your chin up and you will find that you can trick you brain to help you feel better again. Physical posture: Could it have regulatory or feedback effects on motivation and emotion?
How important is good posture?
Totally important! Sitting and standing with ideal alignment lets the body work with less
fatigue and strain on your body’s ligaments and muscles. Good posture also helps us look and feel better about ourselves! Being aware of our posture, especially at an early age helps prevent the permanent changes that can occur if poor posture is left uncorrected for many years.
What are posture’s main benefits?
1. Less work for our joints, muscles and brain
2. Improved mental wellbeing
3. Better strength and flexibility
4. Fewer postural related injuries
Dr Ryan’s Hot Tips!
Roll your shoulders back, raise your chin and elongate your neck. This is a great break from school work or when you’ve been at the computer for a while.
The most powerful mood effects take place when you use both facial expressions and posture. So stand up straight and smile. You’ll feel great!
Submitted by Dr Ryan Hislop – Chiropractor.
