Why Your Posture Is Important
How often do you see a well-meaning mother chastise their child for ‘stooping’. Most of us can recall our own mother telling us to ‘stand up tall’ or to not ‘slouch’. Stooping, slouching, not standing up tall are easily recognised from youth as being counterproductive and the antithesis of what we would know to be ‘good posture’.
Roger Sperry, Ph.D (Noble Prize in Physiology & Medicine 1981) is quoted to have said that 90% of the brain’s activity is used to balance your body against gravity’s effects. He went on to say: ‘The more mechanically distorted a person is the less energy is available for health, metabolism, and thought’.
Theses statement tells us that posture is important. If you are anything like me you do not need a Nobel Prize-winning scientist to alert you to the importance of good posture. Our many childhood reminders have served well to remind us there is a benefit to adopting good posture.
Good posture has many health benefits.
The benefits of good posture include:
- Less tension is experienced in the neck and shoulders when we adopt ‘good posture’.
- There is a lessened chance of developing a common type of headache (cervicogenic) that can emanate from the base of the skull. A slouched and head poked position can precipitate these headaches.
- A lowered chance of experiencing lower backaches or pains.
- Aesthetically you will appear more confident and posied. This is never more important than when meeting people for the first time. First impressions are powerful.
- Clothes fit better on a well-postured frame as opposed to stooped shoulders.
- A lessened chance of developing shoulder impingement problems that can emanate from a stooped position.
Posture check! Are you stooping as you read this?
Brad Beer (APAM)
POGO Physio Guru
Thank you! Very important info for me