What if I told you that I could give you a pill that would make you stand taller, look slimmer, feel more confident, help to beat back pain and improve your general health levels? You’d probably snap it up. Well, there isn’t a pill (thank goodness, we rely too heavily on pill-popping) but by improving how you stand, sit, walk and relax you can gain all these benefits. And it’s free – it just requires a little will power.

Training yourself back into the correct position requires a degree of mental effort…until the correct posture once again becomes your natural posture. And then you won’t have to consciously think about it as your body will naturally adopt it.

Let me give you some straight facts on posture. Poor posture can cause back ache, headaches and digestive problems, it can restrict movement and disturb your sleep. Once established, poor posture creates a chain reaction throughout the body. If your head is just one inch forward of the correct balanced position it increases the strain on your shoulder and neck muscles ten fold.

We are born symmetrical, but sedentary lifestyles, clamping a phone between your ear and shoulder, carrying heavy bags, poor driving positions or sitting with your legs crossed all contribute to throwing us off balance. As children, we were told to ‘stop slouching’ yet we were seldom taught effective ways to achieve ‘good posture’. See below for some easy ways to dramatically improve your posture.

I advise all my patients on how to improve their posture and I list health and confidence boosts as just some of the benefits of a better posture. Last week, a patient seemed very dubious about how standing correctly could affect her general health. So I explained that it’s all to do with the fact that our brain and nervous system control everything in our bodies – including the immune system. At the base of your brain, the spinal cord emerges and runs down through your spine, branching out along the way into nerves that reach every part of your body.

Messages to all parts of your body flow along this nervous system, rather like water in a garden hose. Just as a kink in a hosepipe will inhibit the flow of water, misaligned bones can hamper the flow of messages along your nerves. When the nervous system is working properly, everything else in your body has a chance to function properly – including your immune system. Good posture will help prevent interference on your nervous system.

Having understood this, my curious patient (I love curious patients – they learn so much!) then questioned how posture affects our confidence. Well, look around you now or take the opportunity later today to do some people watching. What mood do you think they are in? Happy, sad, tired, depressed, excited?

Much of the evidence you use to make these quick judgements is collected by looking at people’s body language – particularly their posture. If someone is walking tall with their head held high, you will unconsciously recognise this and in turn treat them as if they are confident.

Imagine how it would be if everyone took one glance at you and then treated you as if you were confident and outgoing. Wouldn’t that begin to make you feel and behave in a more confident way?

And if that hasn’t inspired you to start improving your posture, then how about this: standing correctly can make you look as if you’ve dropped a dress size. Surely that’s a good incentive.

9 Tips To Improve Your Posture:

1. Enlist your friends as ‘posture watchers’ and get them to tell you when you’re slipping into your old sloppy habits. Use Post-It notes as reminder and put them in areas that you see daily.
2. Get up and move! Every 30 minutes, ensure you have two minutes of walking stretching or standing – anything to change position.       Use a lumbar roll to help maintain the gentle curves in your spine.  Try these exercises for yourself and your clients to help with the posture http://www.spinalcarecentre.co.uk/pages/members/ReliefPhase.html
3. Take advantage of adjustable features on chairs and car seats. Sit up straight and align the ears, shoulders, and hips in one vertical line. Alter the chair until it supports you in this position.
4. Be aware of and avoid unbalanced postures such as crossing legs unevenly while sitting, leaning to one side, hunching the shoulders forward or tilting the head.
5. Try to avoid loading up your handbag and go for backpacks that evenly spread the load and encourage good posture.
6. Avoid or minimise wearing high heels – they are incredibly bad for your back as they change your centre of gravity.
7. Remember good posture and ergonomics when in motion. Back injuries are especially common while twisting and lifting so try to avoid this.
8. Sleep on your back with a small pillow under your knees. If you prefer to sleep on your side then place the pillow between your knees. Absolutely no sleeping on your tummy!
9. And finally, relax: avoid clenching muscles and adopting a stiff posture.

 

Standing tall

To stand up straight keep your shoulders back and your stomach pulled in. Gently contract your abdominal muscles. Gently! Don’t suck in your stomach so that you think you’re going to faint. Avoid locking your knees and spread your legs so that the gap between your feet is equal to your shoulder width.

Try moving your head slightly back too so that it is sitting above your shoulders and not sticking forward. This will feel a little strange at first but persevere because soon you will naturally adopt this stance.