Posture from the Inside Out
When you think about “good posture, you probaby think about being told to stand up straight. Maybe keep your shoulders down and suck your belly in. You might have tried these things to improve your posture, even though as soon as you stop thinking about them, you can’t sustain the position they created in your body.
But maybe sometimes your attention is drawn to your body. Maybe you have been standing a while and your back aches. Or you go to turn your head and you feel stiff. So we might want to improve how we feel in our bodies, and it might seem that improving our posture is a good way to do it.
So let me ask you a question: have you checked in with your body recently? What do you notice about how your body feels? Try not to “do” anything, just notice.
In yoga classes, you might hear lots of instructions about your posture. These instructions might have included:
lift up your kneecaps
lift up your lower belly
tuck tailbone
roll your shoulders back and down / pull your shoulders back
“put your shoulder blades into your back pockets”
suck belly in
make your spine straight
activate your core
lift your pelvic floor
stand like you are trying to make your back flat against a wall, and then keep that as you step away
and many more… many, many more.
You can try doing any of those movements. Do they help you feel better in your body? Are they sustainable?
All of these instructions, as movement cues, have validity in certain circumstances. But as a postural strategies, and as blanket instructions for all people to “stand correctly,” they are all likely to make you over-correct, over-work and cause different problems. Besides that, none are sustainable: they all require extra energy and conscious engagement. The minute (second) you think about something else, you will likely lose the conscious control of your posture. And as well you should! Who wants to spend their life thinking about sucking their tummy in when they could be thinking of all sorts of amazing, creative, interesting thoughts?
But of course, there are ways that we stand that causes imbalances in our body and pain. And it is a worthwhile goal to have “good posture”, for a number of reasons. So how can we create better posture without correcting and over correcting our own bodies?
How can we create posture that is dynamic, Responsive to our circumstances, & helps us feel our best in life?
Can we use our posture to create the kinds of qualities we want to feel: confidence, grace, ease, presence, dynamism, energy etc? (a good idea is to think of the qualities you want in your life and insert them here!)
Tuning in
The first step to finding better posture is to tune in sensorily to what you are experiencing in your body. What do you notice? Some specific questions:
Where do I feel my weight on my feet? Is one foot heavier than the other? If stepped in paint, and then left a foot print on the floor, where would be the most paint? There are lots of metaphors you could use here.
Liang, Tsair-Chun & Lin, Jhe-Jhun & Guo, Lan-Yuen. (2016). Plantar Pressure Detection with Fiber Bragg Gratings Sensing System. Sensors. 16. 1766. 10.3390/s16101766.
What do I feel in my pelvis? is one hip more forward or back than the other? More out to the side? Is the whole thing pushed forward? Backwards?
Is there sensation of tightness anywhere?
Is there sensation of heaviness anywhere?
Is there an overall feeling of tone, or lack of tone anywhere that I notice?
Where is my attention drawn in my body?
Waking up
The first tool that will help your body instantly is to wake up your capacity to sense your body. This sense is called proprioception and it is key to all our movement. A great way to wake up your proprioception is by tapping the body.
Stand for a moment and notice what you feel. Then, start with one leg. Tap down and around the leg getting all the surfaces including the hip and the foot. You can also “wash” (rubbing like you are soaping the skin), massage, or brush the skin. After about a minute, pause and stand on 2 legs. Its likely that side will feel different. Maybe bigger, fuller or more organised.
After noticing the first side, go on to the second. Tap, wash, brush the whole leg.
After the legs you can tap around the belly, back, bum, and torso. You can tap front and back, or one one side of the body then the other, up to the chest.
Then choose an arm and tap the arm, arm pit and shoulder. Move the arm around in space as you tap. It can also be helpful to look at your body at the same time. Add “washing”, brushing and a little shake of the arm. Then pause and notice. This arm might feel more lifted, or it might feel longer. The shoulder might be more flexible when you lift up the arm.
Do the second arm. You can then lightly tap the neck, shoulders, face and head. Use your fingertips if you like.
What we are doing with tapping is waking up the sensory nerves with this strong sensation. The sensory nerves, with this stimulation, send more complete messages to the brain, which then organises the body more efficiently, without any of your conscious effort. So while you might not tap your body while you are waiting in line at the bank, you can lightly shake your arms and legs (athletes often do this before a race), or gently rub your own shoulders and feel better straight away.
Creating balance
Good posture is about being adaptable in the moment, not about holding a perfect position. My teacher, Eric Franklin says “your best posture is the next posture,” meaning firstly, that we shouldn’t try to hold onto anything as “perfect” or even correct. Secondly, it reminds us that posture is change. Even when standing still, your body will naturally sway a little. The muscles in your feet will activate as your weight shifts around. This movement is tiny, but if you try to stop it happening, it is noticable and very uncomfortable.
The other principle of good posture is that your body is dealing with forces in an efficent manner. Gripping or tightening the body is, by its very nature, inefficient. In the same way the little muscles in your feet respond to shifts and changes, the muscles in your abdomen and backturn on and off to support your body. So don’t try to stiffen or tighten.
A better strategy is to up-regulate the muscles of the core, so that they are more responsive to those shifts and changes. Tapping helps with that, but in your own training, you might want to practice being off balance and getting back onto balance.
Here is a little game you can play with a water bottle, yoga brick or other stable object.
Pick it up / Put it down
Stand on 2 feet holding your object. Put the object down on the floor with one hand. Pick it up with the other. Keep going.
You can imagine you are standing on a clock face with 12:00 straight in front of you. Try putting the object down on each number of the clock. 11/12/1 are pretty easy. 8/9/10 & 2/3/4 are slightly more tricky to reach from the other side. For 4/5/6/7/8 you can play with how your reach behind yourself. You can also play with putting the block down closer to the body or further away.
What you are doing is challenging yourself to move the core, and compensate for balance in unusual ways. Be playful with it and have fun.
I usually put a timer on for 3 minutes or chose a fun song to do the game to. An additional variation is to do the whole game standing on one foot. Some angles it is easier on one foot, because the leg counter balances, but it is a great challenge for balance. You can do each leg until it is starting to feel fatigue.
Some tips for improving posture throughout your day.
Move. Don’t stay too long in one position. Set a timer and get up and shift your body every so often.
Set up your space so that you feel comfortable and the position is ustainable. Or better yet, have a few options where and how you can sit.
Take little moments to tune into your body. I just closed my eyes took a breath and wiggled my shoulders: 5 seconds. Look up and out a window: 10 seconds. You can do it.
Check in with how you feel, and how you feel aftern any intervention. if you wiggled your shoulders, what do you notice after.
Make it a habit. Is there a time you get up fo make a tea? Add osme movement then. Do you walk to the bathroom? Add movement then. Make a practice of it so it fits in.
Make it enjoyable. Put music on. Smile. Lift your arms up. It helps.