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Good posture Good posture is powerful. It expresses confidence, vitality, and youthfulness. Our bodies are naturally designed to enable us to move gracefully and efficiently, yet many of us fall into poor postural habits. Everyday tensions and stresses are often absorbed by our bodies and compounded over time. This has a domino effect, creating a structure whose integrity is sorely compromised - emphasis on "sore." Poor posture is manifested in many different ways. Mentally, poor posture can contribute to tension as well as heighten physical stress. Physically, when your spine is compressed, the internal organs are squeezed as if they are in a vice, and lung capacity can decrease, causing your nerves and blood vessels to become constricted. This can increase the potential for chronic back pain, neck pain, and headaches. Standing and sitting properly keep your muscles in balance, allowing your spinal column and all of the surrounding muscles to work in harmony, thus providing you with pain-free mobility. Poor posture indicators, according to physical therapist Deborah Ellison, are: "collapsed arches in your feet; an elevated hip or shoulder; one side of the body rotated forward or back; pelvis and hips tilted to the front, back or side; rounded back; drooping chest and shoulders; head jutting forward." These misalignments are often caused by muscle imbalances from poor sitting or standing habits, or from the body's own ability to work around muscle weaknesses due to an injury. The posture and movements of small children are great to watch. But as we start to grow older and tense ourselves in reaction to life's worries and concerns, our posture deteriorates, often quite seriously. Our shoulders may become hunched, our necks stiff, and we sit either slumped or holding ourselves in a rigid upright position. We have a series of reflexes throughout the body that support us against the force of gravity and naturally co-ordinates our movements. Inappropriate muscular tension creates an interference with these reflexes and the result is that many of us move in ways that are awkward and inefficient. This can give rise to a wide range of common ailments such as arthritis, neck and back pain, migraine and sciatica. Many of our postural problems can be traced to over-tensed neck muscles that interfere with the free movement of the head in relationship to the spine. If this freedom is not present it will be impossible to obtain any lasting ease elsewhere in the body. This freedom of movement requires that the head balance lightly on the top of the spine. This in turn allows all the other mechanisms and reflexes throughout our body to work as nature intended - our spine becomes longer, our neck becomes freer and all our joints and muscles function with a minimum of excess tension. =========================================================== Questions: 1. Good posture expresses ______________________, vitality, and youthfulness. 2. Everyday tensions and stresses are often absorbed by our bodies and ______________________ over time. 3. Physically, when your spine _______________, the internal organs are squeezed as if they are in a ________. 4. These misalignments are often caused by muscle __________________ from poor ________________ or standing habits 5. As we react to life's worries and concerns, our posture _____________________________, often quite seriously. 6. Inappropriate muscular __________________ creates an interference with these ___________________ and the result is that many of us move in ways that are awkward and inefficient. 7. Many of our postural problems can be traced to over-tensed _________________ muscles. 8. This freedom of movement requires that the head ______________ lightly on the top of the ______________. 9. Our spine becomes ________________, our neck becomes __________________ and all our joints and muscles function with a minimum of excess tension. =========================================================== Excerpts
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