Not so many years ago, many people earned their livings by doing physically demanding activities and certainly had to do some walking on most days to get to and from work. Nowadays, more and more people work at a desk, often behind a computer and walk no further than to and from the car park. Working in an office can play havoc with your posture and bad posture can have an adverse effect on your health.
Consequences of poor posture
Poor posture can result in headaches, wrist, neck and back pain, loss of concentration, fatigue, digestive upsets, stress and a general loss of productivity. Chronic back/ neck pain can also have a seriously negative effect on your mood, and because it’s chronic and just goes on and on, it’s easy to assume that you’re a moody, sullen, ill-tempered you-know-what by nature – which you’re really not. And if you’ve suffered with chronic pain long enough, it becomes as normal as breathing.
Apart from the impact on health, poor posture also affects appearance, making you look older and heavier than you actually are. Sit or walk with good posture and you instantly looker younger, stronger and slimmer, you’ll also look more confident, in control and way more graceful. And last, though by no means least, it might just help to shake off that persistent, energy-sapping, mood-killing back or shoulder pain. Be more posture-aware and enjoy all incredible benefits from something as simple as sitting up straight!
BAD VS GOOD POSTURE
Posture is the alignment of your joints and can be good or bad:
In good posture, your joints are aligned in such a way that they are not exposed to additional wear and tear; your center of gravity is over your base of support and very little energy needs to be expended to hold you in the right position. For example, in good posture, your head and your neck is long is up which places very little stress on your neck muscles.
Conversely, bad posture places stress on structures that don’t like to be stressed, uses excess energy and can also lead to discomfort and even pain. For example, craning your head forward toward a computer screen stresses your neck muscle and the cervical joints in your spine (see image above!).
If you care about your health and your appearance, you need to care about your posture too!
