Your posture affects much more than just the way your body looks. In fact, your posture, whether good or bad, can contribute to your overall health, including whether or not you will develop back pain, headaches, spinal disc damage or bone spurs. Even if you have not practiced good posture in the past, you can still make a difference by changing your posture now in the following ways.
Spinal Curves
A good posture revolves around keeping the three natural spinal curves of your body. These curves include the cervical curve of the neck, the thoracic curve of the upper back and the lumbar curve of the lower back. Good posture keeps these curves in their natural places, while bad posture can create imbalances leading to pulled muscles and stress to the body.
Straight
One of the most important parts of maintaining good posture is keeping the body straight. This means not hunching the back and not slouching and creating an unnatural curve to the spine while in a sitting position. In order to keep the body in a straight position, hold the chest high, keep the shoulders slightly back and pull in the abdomen.
Relaxed
Though it's important to keep a straight line in the body, avoid being overly rigid. Instead, keep your body relaxed with your arms to your side, your feet about shoulder-width apart and parallel to each other and the shoulders relaxed. Too rigid of a stance can place extra stress on the muscles and may hold the spine out of a natural alignment. Keep your knees relaxed as well by refraining from locking them straight.
Head Position
When focusing on good posture, monitor the placement of your head. Do not hang your head looking down at the floor, but instead look straight forward, keeping your neck relaxed in order to maintain the natural cervical curve. Do not tilt your head forward or keep it turned to the left or right.
Benefits
Benefits to maintaining a good posture include improved outward physical appearance and an air of self-confidence. Proper posture keeps the body balanced, putting all of your joints and bones in alignment and allowing the body to move and the muscles to work properly. This proper alignment also helps prevent pain, strain, ligament stress and fatigue and ensures that abnormal wearing of the joint surfaces does not occur, states the Cleveland Clinic.
