The New Rules of Posture: How to Look and Feel Younger
The way your hold your body in space has a dramatic effect on how you feel. Good posture helps you breathe easier, feel lighter and move more dynamically. Bad posture compresses internal organs, creates pain and can lead to permanent damage and poor breathing habits. Good posture can make an older person look and feel younger. Bad posture can make a young person look older than his or her years.
A few weeks ago I spent a weekend with Mary Bond, author of The New Rules of Posture (Healing Arts Press, 2006.)
Mary, a former dancer and a faculty member of the Rolf Institute in Boulder, CO, spent two days bringing a class full of yoga enthusiasts to a better understanding of how to stand, sit and walk with ease. Her perspective is based on an in-depth understanding of the body from the inside out and she teaches in ways that help you to experience fluidity and grace, rather than giving strict rules and postural “commandments.” In fact, she admitted “New Rules of Posture” was the publisher’s title, not hers.
This excerpt from her book gives you some idea of the poetry Bond brings to body work. And since I’ve recently started swinging again with my granddaughter, I knew just what she meant!
“Recall what it feels like to be on a swing. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine yourself reliving the experience. As children, what was so pleasurable about swinging was the way the body’s changing relationship to gravity made us feel. On the downward plunge, our bodies felt weighted, heavy, and solid. But when the swing’s momentum defied gravity and took us flying, we felt ourselves blended with the air and knew ourselves as creatures of sky and light, weightless and spacious.”
While I can’t possibly convey the depth of Bond’s contribution to healthier posture in an article like this, I can give you some of her constructive tips for sitting in a way that will help you reduce tension, ease your breathing and reduce pressure on your spine and internal organs. Most of us spend way too much time sitting. And we accumulate great tension and stress in doing so. Since you are probably sitting at a computer right now as you read this, I suggest you experiment with these tips and see for yourself if you feel better.
1. When you sit, your hips should be at least an inch higher than your knees. The angle between your trunk and your legs should be greater than 90 degrees. Experiment till you find what height feels best. If need be, move your chair in front of a mirror so you can actually see the angle. This positioning generally requires that you sit forward, more towards the front of the chair, than resting on a back rest. (If you can’t raise your chair, place a folded wedge of towel or blanket under your thighs and buttocks.)
2. Feel about 40% of weight of your body rest on your feet, settling the remainder of your weight onto the backs of your thighs. This will allow a gentle curve in your back and you should feel as though it releases your upper spine upwards and makes it easier to breath.
3. Keep your chin level. Your computer should be positioned so that you don’t have to tilt your chin up or down, which puts stress on your neck. Notice what it feels like to have your ears floating above your shoulders. If you tend to lean into your work, elongating your neck forward, check for this at regular intervals and reposition.
4. Let go of your mouse or remove your hands from your keyboard at regular intervals, so you don’t store tension in your wrists, arms, shoulders and neck. Look away from the computer screen at the same time. Staring at the screen for hours also tenses up your body.
5. Breathe deeply, feeling your lower rib cage lifting your torso, which massages your spine.
The Anti-Aging Bottom Line: At first, a new posture like this, which is more dynamic than reclining back into a chair, may feel tiring. You are using your muscles in a new way. But you should feel lighter, breathe easier and feel more interior space than you do when slouching or sitting at too low an angle. Try it and see! For avid body workers, I strongly suggest you look for a copy of Mary Bond’s book. Find more information here.
