A huge under-rated piece of wellness…. Your posture.
We do go about our daily lives with varying degrees of energy, joy, frustration, irritation, love, pain, and so on.
How we position ourselves in life (our posturing) is a reflection of our daily habits, body awareness, sense of self, daily emotions and outlook on life.
“Let me look at your posture and I can tell you how you regularly think and feel without even knowing you”- me (Dr. Steve)
Some of us can tend to have an experience, let’s say neck pain or ongoing frustrations and NOT link that to our posture.
It’s not everyone’s first thought to think that their posture and how they hold themselves, is in direct experience with what they are feeling.
Slouch forward long enough you will weaken and feel depressed.
Stand rigid and upright long enough you will feel tight and get anxious.
Research has shown links of poor posture with heart and lung disease, decrease brain health, fibromyalgia and other chronic fatigue and pain disorders, and actually…a lower life span.
In fact, social psychologist Amy Cuddy couldn’t agree more, and has built a career around the effects and relevance of posture.
Here’s the quick tip on checking you or your families posture:
1)Stand in front of a mirror
2) Close your eyes and nod your head up and down a few times to take out the eye reflex of balancing
3) Now open your eyes but don’t move anything.
4) Look at the level of your earlobes, shoulders and hips.
5) Also check to make sure the middle of your nose, mouth and centre of your sternum line up
6) Have someone check you from the side to make sure the top of your shoulder lines up with the front of your ear.
If everything checks out, congratulations!
If not, call me and I can do a quick check with some clinical recommendations.
Have a powerful week!
Dr. Steve
