Good posture is more than just something your grandmother chided you over at dinner. Poor posture puts extra strain on your joints and muscles, sometimes even your organs. It can cause pain and injury. Good posture can help protect you from slipping and falling and avoid many repetitive stress injuries. And yes, it will get grandma off your back at Thanksgiving.
What Good Posture Is
Good posture aligns the skeleton; it places the skeleton in a straight line. The ankles are beneath the knees, the knees beneath the hips, the hips beneath the shoulders and the shoulders beneath the head.
Maintain Good Posture
Imagine your skeleton dangling from a cord connected to the top of your head. If lifted so your feet no longer touch ground, your body will automatically hang in excellent posture. If you stand with that image in your mind, you will stand with correct posture.
The Importance of Good Posture
The skeleton is designed to support weight. Our leg bones support our hips; the spine supports the torso and head. When the skeleton is aligned, the weight of the upper body automatically settles on the supporting lower bones. If our posture is poor, that weight is instead borne by the muscles, tendons and ligaments.
Poor Posture and Muscle/Joint Pain
If you slouch forward, all the weight of your shoulders, neck and head is borne up by the small muscles in the lower back. Compare the hips and leg bones, and the muscles of the legs and butt; these are tiny structures to support such weight. It won't be long before the lower back begins to feel the strain.
Poor Posture and Illness
Another facet of poor posture is that you can constrict your organs. By slouching to any side, you put extra weight on your internal organs on that side of the body. Habitually stressing those organs can cause damage to those organs or even the entire body, as the liver, for example, operates below peak performance.
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