Can Better Posture Make you Happier? 

 Your attitude is everything! You’re either giving your best to your family and coworkers or you’re not. It’s that simple. Working out is simply a tool that allows you to be your best each day.  As a fitness professional trained in musculoskeletal assessments, I am aware that a person’s posture holds clues about their structure and movement potential. Have you ever considered that you can also use the results of a postural assessment to gain insight to your mental state of mind and emotional well-being? Furthermore, by helping improve posture, you can also make yourself happier.

Emotions Help Shape our Posture

Someone who is feeling depressed or helpless tends to have a rounded upper back and shoulders and slouches? From a postural analysis standpoint these imbalances are called excessive thoracic kyphosis, a protracted shoulder girdle and internally rotates arms. Alternatively, someone who is angry or preparing themselves to fight or flee tends to have excessive tension in their neck, jaw and lower back. From a postural perspective these musculoskeletal deviations are known as excessive cervical lordosis (a curvature of the spine at the neck pushing your head forward). This causes lordosis in the lumbar (or an excessive curve in the lower back). Over time, if these emotions become typical the musculoskeletal system learns to repeat these patterns and they become manifested in both the brain and body evidenced as ingrained postural habits. 

Good Posture Can Boost Your Mood

While our emotions help shape our posture the reverse is also true in that good posture can improve your mood. To experience this phenomenon for yourself, practice the following exercises to make you aware of how your posture affects your emotions and mental experience surrounding a particular event or thought. 

Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Slightly knock your knees together, round your shoulders and upper back forward and look at the ground. Now say aloud, “I am king/queen of the world”. How do you feel? Not very convincing, right? 

Now stand upright with your feet and knees pointing forward, your shoulders pulled back and your spine upright and eyes looking forward. Repeat the words, “I am king/queen of the world”. Much more convincing! You can now appreciate that although you were trying to convey the same message in both postures, the more upright posture affected your confidence and mood allowing you to be much more self-assured, assertive and believable. 

Practice this exercise several times and share it with your family and friends. It is recommended, however, that you introduce this exercise once a day. Many people are a little hesitant to accept the magnitude of the mind/body relationship and may shy away from these concepts. They are the basic concepts of a corrective exercise program. 

Change Your Posture, Change your Life

Once you are more aware of the mind-body relationship between your emotions and your posture, you can be more mindful of those times throughout the day that a bad mood or negative state of mind is affecting your posture and vice versa. The simple correction above can be an ongoing program to address poor postural habits. 

For example, let’s consider you have excessive thoracic kyphosis (a rounded upper back and shoulders), and feel as though people walk all over you both at work or in a significant relationship. I would encourage thoracic spine extension and shoulder retraction ( stand upright with your feet and knees pointing forward, your shoulders pulled back and your spine upright and eyes looking forward) the subsequent repositioning of your body/posture will increase your self confidence and create more positive relationships both at home and at work. 

Now that you understand how posture affects your mood, feelings and emotions, you can teach your friends and family about the relationship. Helping them become more aware of their postural habits, correct deviations and ultimately increase their happiness, health and vitality. 

Written by Justine Price