Do you know what it feels like to stand with good posture? Our grandparents knew the value of standing tall, and now science is catching up. In Slouch at Your Own Peril: Hunching at Work Leads to Hunching All the Time, the Wall Street Journal reported on new studies showing what chiropractors and orthopaedic surgeons know: posture is the 363kg gorilla of health and wellness.
With more of us developing a permanent slump from sitting at a computer, using smartphones and texting, posture is gaining new recognition as a growing problem.
Sitting is a bent posture, literally folding the torso over the pelvis. Texting locks the hands together causing the shoulders to roll inward. The combination means chronically tight back, neck and chest muscles. Plus, as we age, gravity combines with muscle imbalances to make people feel and look older than they are.
If you spend your day with folded posture, suffer with back pain or aching shoulders and neck, you may want to do some work re-balancing your body. First, learn how to stand tall. Retraining posture requires us to stretch tight areas and strengthen neglected ones. Look at how you interact with your seated, standing and sleeping environments.
Posture reality check
To observe what the world sees when you think you're standing straight, take a picture of yourself. Just stand tall, and snap a few from the front, back and side.
How to stand tall
When most people try to "fix their posture" they pull their shoulders back. The problem is they can't hold the position for more than a minute, which is just as well because they're nearly always doing more harm than good.