Almost everyone is aware of "good posture" as a concept. But why should you care, really? If it feels like work to hold your head high, you are not going to make it a habit. There are a number of reasons why maintaining good posture matters. Visually and psychologically we categorize people by their posture. Have you been job-hunting recently? Height and an appearance of uprightness appeal aesthetically to humans. For example, a Fortune 500 survey in 2005 found that 90% of male CEO's are above average height. Tall women dominate the fashion runways and our stereotype of beauty. As a culture, we clearly have a prejudice towards admiring and promoting tall people.
The physical benefits of good posture also impact our quality of life. The unique design of the human skeleton to stand and bear weight enables us to turn quickly, run long distances, and reach and manipulate objects (like ski poles, paint brushes, and tennis racquets). Habitual poor posture, however, creates the necessity for our muscles to hold up mass that should be supported by our bones. When we over-utilize our strength to keep us upright, we create inefficiencies in our movement. We deprive ourselves of the power we're designed for and lose energy more quickly. We can also end up with chronic pain or repetitive stress injuries caused by under-utilizing our core strength to support the movement of our limbs. Tennis elbow, anyone?
Our core muscles aren't necessarily too weak, but since they're chronically over-engaged keeping us upright, their range of motion gets limited. Through lack of use (you've heard "use it, or lose it"), the brain patterns governing movement become more and more limited in scope and we sort of "forget" how to move as we once did. We begin to move like an aging person (and feel like one), instead of enjoying our true capacity to run, dance, jump, and climb, or to sit without backaches and support.
You can achieve excellent posture and body mechanics when critical changes take place in your brain, where neuro-muscular habit patterns control and optimize the organization of your movement. You can begin to help yourself by giving your brain the sensory information it needs to start reorganizing your posture. Start noticing, for example, where you feel the weight on your feet when you stand in your typical manner. The role of your feet as the foundation for your skeleton profoundly affects your posture. Then notice the angle of your pelvis. With your hands on your hips (so you can identify the top of your pelvis) imagine your tailbone. Gently tilt your pelvis a little forwards and backwards and notice how your tailbone gets tucked between your legs, or gets angled backwards. Can you feel the weight shift on your feet when you tilt your pelvis? Can you feel that when your tailbone tucks under, your rib cage contracts a little and that as your tailbone moves backwards, your shoulders can broaden and your chest expand? Is it easier to breathe? These questions, derived from the work of Moshe Feldenkrais, can help you improve your posture by heightening your awareness about your habitual posture as well as discovering new possibilities.
These subtle anatomical relationships are easy to notice when your body possesses the fluid movement for which it was designed. If the answers aren't clear, you may have lost some innate movement capacity, but that doesn't mean you can't get it back. You might blame these limitations on "getting old", but by bringing awareness to your movement and learning good ergonomic habits you can regain much of the fluidity of youthful movement. Like a child, it can become easy for you to sit or stand at your full height, turn or bend in any direction with equal ease, or quickly and easily get up and down off the floor.
Why should you care about posture? Because it can liberate your thought patterns and free your muscles and joints for fuller breathing, better balance, coordination, and flexibility so bad habits no longer make your daily routine a pain in the neck!
Bridget Palmer, GCFP, integrates the Feldenkrais MethodR of somatic education into her work with children and adults to enhance their movement and thinking potential. She is Director of Santa Rosa Children's Theater and the Art of Living Institute, which offers private movement lessons, group classes, and corporate trainings utilizing movement, imagination, and relationship awareness to create better brain patterns for coordinated movement and increased innovation and productivity. You can read more about Bridget Palmer's work by visiting http://www.artoflivinginstitute.org. You can find resources to support exercises for better posture at http://www.highfunctionfeldenkrais.com.
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