Tips On Good Posture
Good posture is tough to maintain with our current sedentary lifestyle. We perform most activities in front of our bodies, leading to tightness of the muscles in the front of the neck, arms and chest. So, it's easy to collapse front wards, and develop a rounded shoulders- forward head-slouchy posture. Correction of posture is also difficult, being that poor posture is perpetuated with our daily activities.
To correct posture, you need to consistently work at it. Typically, your neck is slightly curved inward, your mid-back is slightly curved outward, and your low back is curved slightly inward again. The idea is to maintain these curves during all activities. But the trick is to do this without excessive work on the part of the muscles. Here are some tips to do this:
- Straighten up from the low back. This will automatically get your head in a better position.
- Pretend that there is a string attached to the top of your head, just like it is on a puppet. Now, pretend that the string is being pulled slightly, so as to "elongate' your neck towards the ceiling (thereby causing a "chin tuck", but not using any muscles).
- Try this exercise. Sit in a chair and then simply stand up. Do this a few times. Note the sensations around your head and neck. Now repeat this exercise, only this time, while getting up from the chair, you are going to lean your body forward from the hips, and use your legs to push yourself up. Feel the difference at your neck. Now that you feel a "relaxed" neck, try to repeat this feeling with all activities.
- Make sure you breathe deeply rather than from the top part of your chest.
- Think of posture as a dynamic, rather than a static activity. It's not about holding a certain position without moving. In fact, the more movement, the better for the body. Posture is about maintaining a balance in the spinal curves through activity.
- Build strength in the muscles of your back (neck, upper, and lower), as well as your abdominal muscles.