All sensible people take care of their health to some degree. This could be through exercise, temperance, and reasonable eating habits. You might feel unhappy that your inability to follow this casts you out of the ‘sensible’ category, but we’d say you are in it even if you don’t believe yourself to be.
For example, it’s unlikely you are happy with eating ten cream cakes in a row, so you understand the benefits of temperance. It makes for a happier life and helps you feel better from day to day.
Have you gotten your full vitamin D quota today? Have you spent enough time in nature? Did you exercise? Have you eaten all five of your recommended daily vegetables and fruits?
Did you use the handrail when walking down the stairs at work? All of these considerations and millions more like them help you stay healthy and safe, yes, but there are so many that maintaining your health optimally could feel like a full-time job.
Of course, we’re exaggerating here a little, but the point remains.
Posture is one habit that can improve or hamper your ability to move and rest in a relaxed manner, and can either harm or help your long-term health.
With this article, we hope to explore the benefits of improving your posture, and why it’s so worth thinking about:
Seated Posture
Many people spend a good amount of time sitting down. From working with computers to relaxing on the sofa playing video games, it seems that the most current and natural state for the human being is sitting down.
This can wreak havoc on your posture, and for many troubling reasons. Not only does your posture inform your alertness, but it can harm your spine over time.
When we’re seated we have the tendency to rest on our tailbones and not our buttocks, as well as round or flex our backs. Our tendency to do this can sometimes get out of hand, and can sometimes lead to slipped discs or hernias.
At the very worst, sitting at a computer can result in ‘forward head syndrome’ something which feels normal but looks completely silly if viewing your posture from a side angle. With the help of companies such as Office Monster, you can now invest in the right office furniture to allow yourself to be as comfortable as possible when you are at your desk. There’s nothing worse than sitting down, but not feeling relaxed, due to back pain. There is always a solution for many problems that relates to your health.
Check around your local town next time you head out, and you’ll likely see many people with this posture. This can put undue strain on your shoulder joints and neck muscles and can result in headaches and many other afflictions.
In order to improve your seated posture, consider purchasing a lumbar cushion for your office chairs, or always propping your back with seated cushions on your couch. Try to always maintain a natural and unstressed vertical back angle. This not only helps you stay upright and alert but helps your back muscles relax.
To fix forward head syndrome, you’ll have to work at it bit by bit. Chin should be parallel vertically with your collarbones, depending on your individual anthropometry. Working from this parallel perspective will help you eliminate the tendency to lean your neck forward, but it will demand constant attention.
Alternatively, you could visit Solution Chiropractic for expert level spinal and posture rectification, helping you undo the damage and learn habits to overcome those tendencies in future.
Standing Posture
Standing posture is important to get right. The forward head syndrome can again affect you here, but so can a range of other habits. Your weak back muscles might result in your shoulders hunching together or leaning over, and odd foot placement can lead to a strange stride, and joint problems long term.
We all develop strange little bodily habits over time, but it’s important to identify and rectify them were able. It seems strange to advise, but a solid weight lifting or yoga schedule can help you proportionally train your muscles, and this should improve your general standing posture.
Just be sure to enter a free weights program, or attend a great yoga class, as a total bodily consideration will be at the forefront of the tuition. It’s easy to train your ‘mirror muscles’ because you can see those more prominently, but this will only lead to an exaggerated level of bad posture. Try and stand up straight if you can, with good and alert head statue. Allow your firm to stand naturally, and try not to force anything.
The benefits of good posture are hard to fully list, as there are so many. Good posture helps your bones stay in alignment, meaning that all of your muscles contribute well to the walking or lifting load.
It prevents the spine from being fixed in abnormal positions, which can be the most insidious and dangerous result of bad posture. If you are privy to experiencing common muscular and joint pains, you’ll notice how good posture helps mitigate those tendencies well.
How Can I Achieve This?
Good posture is not a simple matter of ‘standing upright.’ It takes time, and added efforts. Losing weight if you’re overweight, stretching every day and exercising for strength will all help you stand up straight and tall.
Believe it or not, but working on your confidence levels will help you too. In social situations, it’s tempting to make yourself as small as possible if you’re under-confident. This is something you might notice yourself doing subconsciously.
Standing up firm, straight and with pride is a great way to maintain your posture throughout the day, and this ‘confidence’ trick can serve to remind you of your daily posture improving efforts. Over 80% of communication is nonverbal, so who knows, you might even benefit socially in some way due to this.
We hope these tips help all those struggling with their posture gain some positive ground.
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