I’d like to change your attitude about a little word that I love and find massively fascinating, but most people consider boring.
Posture.
You may have just rolled your eyes and gotten ready to tune out already. But give me a few minutes to change your mind.
This is NOT your grandmother’s kind of posture talk. I’m not going to tell you to stand ramrod straight and push your shoulders back, I promise. That’s just another form of poor posture and can bring just as much pain as slouching.
Some of you might recollect well-meaning mothers, aunts, or grandmothers lamenting about your posture or even insisting you walk around with a book on your head.
Others might have uncomfortable or unhappy memories of ballet teachers or high school principals making snarky comments about posture.
Posture discussions, I have found, often make people uncomfortable. I’ve had friends tell me they sit up taller or stand straighter when I’m near them because they feel I’m silently judging their posture (I’m really not, I promise). But posture issues run deep and no one likes feeling judged.
Here’s the thing…
Your skeleton, organs, soft tissues, respiration, elimination, brain functionality, and chronic pain can all be affected by your posture.
When your posture is poor, you might be smooshing organs, cutting blood flow to the brain, and even causing flexibility issues, just to name a few issues that poor posture can create.
But what is posture?
Is it the way you stand? Or sit? What about how you sleep? Bend over to pick up your child? Drive your car? Go for a run? Weed your garden?
All of those things!
Posture is dynamic and constantly moving! It is not a static pose that you can memorize. We literally cannot escape posture. We are posture. Good or bad, or somewhere in the middle. And because we can’t escape it, it is something that needs to be spoken about and dare I say TAUGHT to all humans.
Remember sitting crisscross applesauce in Kindergarten?
Guess what? A quick little tweak to that sitting posture allows more blood flow to the brain and enables your spine to align more comfortably. A teacher even noted that children in her class, when taught this simple tweak were less fidgety and more engaged during circle time. Kids this age can learn these techniques to change the way they move or sit. And they can take that knowledge with them forever.
Posture is a HUGE piece of your puzzle!
Not in a judgmental, your-posture-could-be-straighter-kind-of-way.
But in a global overview of-your-soft-tissues-and-bones-interacting-kind-of-way.
As far as schools of thought go in the movement world, there seems to be generally two sides.
Those that say there is no such thing as “poor” posture. Meaning, that all posture is good posture. Just keep moving and don’t stay in one position for too long.
The other side focuses on soft tissue issues and upper crossed/lower crossed syndromes of the physical body. These words sound quite technical but really just come down to meaning either the upper body slouches or the lower body tilts in an uncomfortable way due to certain muscles being over contracted and others being overly weak.
While I can pull good things out of both thought processes, I feel they are missing two vital pieces.
1.) Each human is a snowflake and completely unique unto themselves. We must look at their body/mind in that way and not offer them a one size fits all program.
2.) They are completely ignoring the nervous system which plays a HUGE role in posture.
I call the nervous system the gatekeeper to the body. And no matter how much you keep moving or strengthen/release certain muscles, if your gatekeeper won’t allow you to keep it, any progress you may have made in a session with someone will only last a day or so.
You may have felt this phenomenon for yourself after a massage or chiropractic session. You might have felt amazing for a few hours or even a day, but then everything goes right back to being the same and you wonder what happened. This is because your nervous system would not allow you to keep the changes and your brain put you back to where it thinks you belong and are at your safest.
Where does this leave us? Is there anything you can do to make it better? Is real and lasting change possible?
Yes, and there are ways to make those changes!
Natural and long-lasting posture changes are made over time and require gentle practices like breathwork, somatic movement, and mindfulness work to address the nervous system and soft tissue at the same time. I love sharing this work with my clients and watching their faces transform into smiles when their body morphs into better alignment during a session. But I realize that not everyone has the energy, time, or resources to work with me privately.
“Posture Hacks” on the other hand are something quite different! They are just what they sound like. Quick tricks that every human should know. These simple techniques are ways to shift or prop yourself to create alignment and feel better in your body FAST.
I share these with my clients all the time and now I want to share them with YOU!!
So, I’ve created a ZOOM workshop coming up this month called “The Power of Posture”.
Honestly, I wanted to call it “Posture Play” because to me this is playing! But… people generally resonate more with the word “power” than “play”. So that’s what I ran with. Just know. We will be having fun, lol!
I hope you’ll join me! And please share this opportunity with friends you think might need this.
It’s an evening virtual event on Thursday, October 22nd at 7pm.
Even if can’t make the live event, you can register for it and receive the recording of it to view later.
I’m trying to keep costs down for this since it’s virtual.
Later, when things open up again the workshop will run at a higher price. This is an awesome opportunity to pay only $25 for the virtual class and have access to the video for later reference.
These Posture hacks are game changers!
We are going to talk about standing, sitting, driving, sleeping, bending, and whatever else we can fit in. Bring your questions!
Can’t wait to see you there!
