Benefits of Good Posture!

If we’ve heard it once, we have heard it a thousand times – STAND UP STRAIGHT or SIT UP STRAIGHT!

If you are in an office all day, you can definitely feel the ache in your back …

Office are becoming increasingly aware of their employees postures, what chairs they sit in and what could be improved for a healthier physical stamina throughout the day…

This has come with many interesting chairs, stand up desks and even a few large bouncy balls!

But has this actually improved our postures? What about the rest of us that aren’t necessarily in an office all day but are on the couch, working from home, doing homework on the floor

or… (and almost everyone has done this one)

Hunched over a cell phone, texting, typing, scrolling, tweeting, and on and on…

Well, we came across a TED-Ed Original that explains the benefits of good posture in a funny and fun animation below….You may be surprised at how much your posture affects your brain…

(We also took the liberty to summarize it for you below the video…)

http://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-benefits-of-good-posture-murat-dalkinic

Your posture is the foundation for every movement your body makes and can determine how well your body adapts to the stresses on it. Murat Dalkilinç gives the pros of good posture in the video above…

What kind of stresses you may ask? Every day stresses like carrying a box full of things, or sitting on a subway or just the everyday pull of gravity!

Depending on how well you maintain your posture sitting or standing will determine how much more (or less) your muscles have to work to keep you upright and balanced.

In fact, some muscles will be tight and tense and others can become inhibited. Simply put, poor posture means more wear and tear on your ligaments over time…

Even still, experts have linked poor posture to scoliosis, tension headaches and the ever present back pain.

What’s even more alarming is that poor posture can increase your sensitivity to pain and affect your emotional state in general… So there is a lot of reasons to get our posture together and upright…

Research is showing that poor posture is increasing due to the use of the computer and mobile devices as we tend to look down at them when in use…

So what does good posture look like?

In the video above, there is a two prong animation demonstrating this but here is the breakdown:

When look at the back of someone standing in good posture, all thirty three vertebrae should appear to be stacked
From the side of someone standing in good posture, there should be three curves – one at the neck, one at the shoulders and one at the small of your back.

The video recommends the following for standing and sitting in good posture:

Sitting: Your neck should be in a vertical position, your shoulders relaxed and your arms close to your trunk. Your knees should be at a right angle with your feet flat on the floor.
1. If you are not in an optimal environment, make it so with a few simple changes! If at a desk, adjust your computer so it is lifted to an eye level position.
2. Make sure your elbows and wrists are supported and not dangling or sitting uncomfortably.

Sleeping: Try sleeping with a pillow for neck support and a pillow between your legs

Wearing: Wear shoes with low or no heels but with good arch support…. and for gabbing on the phone? Use a headset!

The video also discusses how it’s not enough just to have good posture but that the body should not be stagnant “in good posture” for too long – that could be even worse than poor posture!

Remember to move around and stretch and for the love of good posture – see to it that you exercise! All of this will be a welcomed gift not only to your joints and muscles but to your bones, brain and heart as well…

So yes… do STAND UP STRAIGHT!