Hello. My name is Thia, and I am a slouch-aholic.
I have more than one school report card that compares me to a turtle coming out of my shell .
This statement was more than a metaphor.
A collapse of the chest with a compensatory round back and a reaching forward with my neck has been my main posture choice, especially in times of stress.
I’ve often wondered over the years, was it the chicken or the egg?
Did my anxiety cause me to try to hide from the world in plain sight by attempting to coil within myself? Or did my flat feet inhibit the glute muscles that hold the pelvis in a neutral position which caused an anterior tilt, and then created a sharp curve in my lower back, a rounded thoracic spine with a forward head and therefore this posture created a nervous system that could never relax and voila… an anxious human.
I don’t know the culprit, but I do know that in my case anxiety and posture have a strong correlation. In order to break some of my less-than-optimal postural habits I’ve needed to confront the causes of my anxiety.
For example, the grocery store.
Simple enough.
Shop for items. Check out at cash register. Leave store.
Have you ever observed yourself or others in the grocery? Have you noticed how people hold their bodies?
My body tried to shrink into itself. … And all those strangers their bodies did the same.
No one looked at anyone.
We hunched over our carriages and tried to hide.
As I corrected my son’s posture, he asked me: “If my body wants to do this, why do I need to change it?”
Good question.
This is where the human mind triumphs over monkey mind. You are worth good posture.
You need that skeletal structure to be stacked properly so that your organs including the lungs can have room to do their job.
Try it now. Round the thoracic spine. Take in a breath. Where does it go? Now straighten the spine. Breathe. Can you feel how the breath can now reach the bottom of the pelvis? See how it can inflate the entire torso?
Posture is more than just looking confident it helps the body function at its best.
How to get better posture?
Awareness is key.
AND…
Exercise.
My exercise of choice has been yoga. Though I shake it up at times with pilates, high intensity interval training (HIIT), and strength training.
For longer than I want to admit I took my slouch into my exercise. Repetitive sub-optimal movement patterns become hard-wired in the brain.
So how do we create new movement patterns?
This is one of the reasons why I love LYT Yoga. Every time we step on the mat we retrain the brain, strengthen muscles, and learn how to move the right muscles for each action.
Join my class and try it out.