Good Posture will help you maintain your independence. The more hunched over you are the more help you are going to need with activities of daily living. There are many reasons for poor posture: muscle weakness, central nervous system disorders, skeletal abnormalities, or simply bad habits gone awry. Regardless, poor posture affects how you will be able to perform simple tasks.
There are no sweeping generalities that will cover all cases of bad posture, but if functional fitness is your goal it is something to think about. Each case needs to be evaluated thoroughly to see if an intervention is possible. By intervention I am talking about exercises, therapy, external braces, or maybe just learning how to work with what you have. In most cases it is possible to change your behavior in order to improve your posture.
Remember how your mother would nag at you to sit up straight when you were a kid; it turns out that she knew what she was talking about. Her words may have fallen on deaf ears at the time but hopefully you still hear her voice in the back of your head.
When did it all start? At first you may have rounded your shoulders because you were the tallest kid in your class or maybe your job kept you hunched over papers or peering at screens for hours on end. Years of hard work may have taken its toll and now you are just too tired to stand tall.
Slumped shoulders, a rounded back, a head tilted too far forward, a spine that curves in a direction it was never meant to curve, all scream bad posture. Ultimately bad posture can lead to a host of problems. Musculoskeletal disorders, muscle imbalance, spasms, pinched nerves come to mind, but don’t forget that your digestive system and your respiratory tract are impacted too.
Good posture, at any age, means that the body is perfectly balanced. You should be able to sense that there is an invisible line leading from your earlobes, through your shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles. There, doesn’t that feel good? You no longer have to hide that beautiful height. People are taller and stronger than they used to be and they are beautiful. Seek professional help if you need to but above all remember to stand tall, and listen to that voice in your head.
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