How Posture Affects Our Health & Techniques For Optimization

Almost everyone grows up hearing that posture is important, and it’s not just about our appearance. Bad body posture has a host of negative effects on both health and performance. It’s a major health concern. Basically, our bodies adapt to the environments we are in, and over time we become imbalanced. Good posture involves your head being aligned over your shoulders, which are aligned over your hips and ankles. Whenever you compromise that system by sitting, looking at screens, slouching, twisting, or wearing heels, you compromise the system and also cause the body to begin stiffening into the new shape. This process causes issues from digestion problems even to increased risk for schizophrenia. No, I’m not kidding, a study linked wearing high heels or heeled shoes (including most running shoes and even cowboy boots) and increased risk for schizophrenia due to the cascading effects from compromising the foot and ankle system.

Here is a short list of issues that poor posture can lead to

• Mood problems

• Headaches

• Joint problems

• Carpel tunnel

• Cardiovascular disease

• Increased blood pressure

• Lack of focus

• Decreased dopamine levels in the brain

What can you do about it? First of all, try to sit less. If you can, work standing or get a standing desk, and start using it a good amount of the time. Standing is a better solution than sitting, but there are still going to be problems. Any time you spend too much time in a specific, static position, you will get movement problems. The solution is movement. The best thing you can do is use a standing desk, but also occasionally sit, sit on the floor, sit cross legged, and vary through multiple positions while working. Further more, you should work out. If you can, try to fit in some exercise while working. You could do 30 jumping jacks every hour on the hour. This will do wonders for your posture. The best kind of training for posture is probably Yoga or gymnastics training, but after that, properly performed power lifting and weightlifting, swimming, and other whole body exercise with low impact is going to be a good choice. The benefit of yoga is that it simultaneously works on your mobility as well as releasing muscle tension, which is great for your back. Much of the issue of bad posture is tension somewhere in the body, and mobility work can help release that. Obviously you can also go to a chiropractor and get adjustments too.

If you want to deep dive into the ways you can get healthier through movement, look into the work of Katy Bowman and her book: Alignment Matters.

Her blog is also a great resource at https://nutritiousmovement.com/blog/

Another amazing resource, though it's a longer read, is How to Become a Supple Leopard by Kelly Starrett.

Resources & Links

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