Does your posture affect your overall health? We know very well that people with good posture look beautiful but are they also healthier, do they live longer?
Let’s look at what scientists have to say about it.
“Good posture not only protects you against back pain, it also improves your overall health and appearance. Poor posture, on the other hand, promotes back pain and can affect the position and function of your abdominal organs, inhibit breathing and oxygen intake, and cause headaches. It may also affect mood.” This excerpt is from Harvard Health Publications / Harvard Medical School.
In a 1994 article in American Journal of Pain management we read:
“Spinal pain headache, mood, blood pressure, pulse, lung capacity are among the functions most easily influenced by posture. Ultimately, it appears that homeostasis and autonomic regulation are intimately connected with posture. Many of these symptoms, including pain, maybe moderated or eliminated by improved posture.”,
In 2004 a study of 1353 older people in California looked at how kyphotic posture – this is the posture in which the top of the back appears more rounded than normal – affects mortality rates. Individuals with hyperkyphosis cannot lie flat with their heads touching a flat surface unless they hyperextend their necks. So to measure how much the back was rounded, the researchers put 1.7 cm blocks under the participant’s head to achieve a neutral head position when lying on a flat table. The more the number of blocks, the bigger the hyperkyphosis. And what they found was that even people that only needed one block had 1.44 greater rate of death.
The conclusion – older men and women with hyperkyphotic posture have higher mortality rates.
Bleak, eh.
The problem
NHS recommends that we avoid slouching and sit upright. But can you correct posture by just sitting up straight or standing tall?
The answer is no. Posture is very much a function of our nervous system so it is outside the reach of ordinary conscious control. We can manage to adjust how we stand and sit for a bit. But when we are not paying specific attention to it, we will very quickly come back to our usual posture.
A solution
To permanently change our posture we need to regularly and determinately work with our muscles and connective tissue and our nervous system. We need to create new sense memories for what feels balanced and stable. Changing the shape that we have been developing for years won’t happen overnight but it is definitely possible.
Yoga is a very good tool for achieving that goal as it develops our sense of our bodies, teaches us about our patterns and offers us alternatives for better and healthier posture.
Related articles:
Yoga for people who sit a lot
Too much sitting – the best posture is the next posture
