Canyon Ranch Health Resorts
Don't slouch! Stand up straight! Shoulders back, chest out, stomach in!
How many times did we hear these admonitions as we were growing up? Well, the good news is that posture has come a long way since the days of walking with a book on your head.

Most of us have a lot of old-fashioned notions about posture. Many people think good posture is holding yourself in a certain way, and that is not at all how we now see it. To us, it is not just the way your body moves through life, but the way you move your body that constitutes 'good' posture. In other words, people move through life in much the same way that they move their bodies. If you are closed down, caved in and withdrawn physically, it affects your mood, the way others view you and the events that occur in your life. People whose chests are open and who carry their heads up, for example, are much more observant. A diminished capacity to move can also bring a diminished capacity to live. If we can broaden our capacity for movement, we broaden our experience of life.

The physical ramifications of proper posture are equally important, because poor stance is often at the root of a wide variety of ills ranging from back, neck and shoulder pain to stiffness, carpal tunnel syndrome and recurrent headaches. Poor posture can also cause or contribute to problems with digestion and breathing as well as fatigue, restricted movement, chronic pain and joint problems.

The easiest way to get past poor posture is to rid yourself of misconceptions that you may have carried since youth. The goal is to increase the ease that you experience throughout the day. Many people are surprised by the lack of straining. Central to this philosophy is the concept of core strength, which involves strengthening and balancing the internal architecture of the body. Essentially, core strength provides a vital foundation on which to build a healthy exercise program - and it's a factor that's all-too-often overlooked during development of standard fitness regimens -- but embraced through disciplines such as Pilates, Feldenkrais, The Ron Fletcher Work and somatic work.

You work to release old patterns and old habits and old movements of posture before we begin to construct something new. This often involves soft-tissue work, neuromuscular therapy, connective tissue rebalancing and even basic stretching before strengthening. While a posture and gait evaluation nets optimal personal tips for posture improvement, here are some simple over-the-Internet tips that can dramatically affect your carriage.

First and foremost: Awareness is essential. Just as mindless exercise doesn't really change the body, mindfulness is necessary to make a change in your stance.
Try this: Rise like a balloon.

Think of rising and becoming lighter. Most of the muscles that hold the body up are vertical. Posture is like an energy flow up from the earth through your body that creates an expansiveness --like a balloon or a bellows.

Visualize the muscle groups that travel vertically from your ankles to your head to release skeletal tension and assist in building core strength, utilizes the Gyrotonic Expansion System to help people experience balance and expansion for improved overall posture.

Movement follows intention: Think about where your head is. The placement of the head, the center of thought, can lead to new positions of balance and grace.

Wherever you put your head, your body automatically finds the most efficient way to support it. Lifting the head off the body, as though a string is pulling from the top of your head, allows the shoulders to drop and open and the abdominals to pull in. This holds true whether you are sitting, standing or walking. Just try it and see.

As you take the time to put these tips to use, remember that ultimately, good posture is a gift you give yourself - one that can ultimately improve your quality of life.