Throughout our lives, most of us have been told that good posture is important for our well-being. Although this is a widely accepted fact, many people don’t know exactly what benefits good posture can bring. It turns out that people that take the time to work on their posture can look forward to positive impacts on many areas of their health.
Good posture allows our spines to stay neutral and makes it possible for our muscles to stay balanced when supporting our bodies. Unfortunately, maintaining our posture can be quite difficult in today’s modern world. Desk workers often find themselves slumped over their keyboards and hunching for hours at a time. Anyone with a cell phone can suffer from constantly looking down at their phone instead of straight ahead as is recommended.
Defining Good Posture
The most important step in practicing good posture is understanding what it looks like. The trick is to help your spine maintain its natural curves at your neck, mid-back, and lower back. This can be done by keeping your head above your shoulders and the top of your shoulders over the hips.
For example, when standing:
- Stand straight with shoulders back
- Keep your head leveled and in line with the body
- Engage your core
- Stand shoulder-width apart
- Keep knees slightly bent
Good posture reduces wear and tear on joints and helps prevent arthritis. It also stops the spine from becoming stuck in strange positions while preventing unwanted back and muscle pain. To ensure proper posture, it’s especially vital to train the body to reduce muscle and ligament strain when moving or working out.
Providing Relief to the Lungs
Did you know that good posture can help the lungs increase their capacity? Slouching over compresses the lungs while standing up straight gives the lungs room to expand. When sitting down, the diaphragm has a hard time contracting properly when someone is in a slouched position. Deep breathing and lengthened seating positions can help open the lungs up.
Improve Digestion
Operating in a slouched or hunched position can also cause organs in the abdominal area to function improperly. This particularly impacts the digestion process and leads to unwanted gas, bloating, constipation, and acid reflux. Slouching tends to puts additional pressure on the abdomen which can make stomach acid go in the wrong direction and lead to heartburn.
Finally, spinal nerves can get tense due to bad posture and create a domino effect that negatively impacts impacts nerves associated with the gut. To avoid these issues, it’s important to keep shoulders down and back, pull the head back, and engage core muscles.
Reducing Aches and Pains
People who practice good posture are able to move in ways that don’t strain the body or stress out various muscles, tendons, and ligaments. When this happens, muscles and other body parts can work properly and avoid damaging different joints unnecessarily.
Poor posture is actually the most common cause of joint pain and can be particularly harmful to the knee joints. This is because slouching pushes the shoulders back and causes extra weight to shift to the knees. In fact, bad posture places the body’s entire skeletal system out of position and causes stress to occur all the way down to the base of the foot.
Conclusion
As you can see, good posture is extremely important for a person’s well-being. It impacts everything from muscle and joint function to digestive organs and lung function. Thankfully, posture can be improved with balance-specific workouts that build strength and loosen tight muscles. Checking your posture throughout the day is a great way to form good habits, especially when working out.
Desk workers should ensure their desks and chairs are set up well from an ergonomic perspective and perform light stretches and movements throughout their day. Staying active, maintaining a healthy weight, and wearing comfortable shoes can also be very helpful for people looking to have great posture.