Stress and Posture

Did you know that good posture not only impacts your physical health but also your mental well-being?

Research shows that posture and the fight and flight response is closely linked.

Stress and posture

For example when the Sabre tooth tiger jumps out of the bush, a number of things would happen in our pre-historic ancestors.  One part of the nervous system takes over to increase heart rate, blood pressure, breathing and a bunch of other things.  That gets us ready to run from the threat or to fight it off.

A little-known part of this is that tension builds up in the pec/chest and front of shoulder muscles.  That pulls us forward and get us into that posture that resembles a boxer’s stance.

This makes sense that you can protect yourself and have necessary muscles primed ready to fight for your life.  While our body is in this position, it encourages that part of the nervous system to continue that response to the threat.

If you survive the attack, you would run from the scene and burn up the adrenaline that was produced.   At the same time posture would change – signaling to the brain it’s now ok to switch off that part of the nervous system.

Posture and stress

Jump forward now to 2023 and the threat of Sabre tooth tigers in zero.  Stresses we commonly experience are sitting in traffic/getting cut off/near misses etc.

Think for a sec about the posture that we often assume in the car.  Shoulders rolled forward and arms out in front.  To our brain, this resembles the boxer’s position.

Our brain is primed for the stress response.

Something  “happens” and we go into full fight and flight mode!  Additionally we often remain in that posture while still in the car.  That further signals to the brain that we are still under threat and that we require the assistance of that part of the nervous system.  The stress response is felt longer and has a bigger impact.  This is another reason our overall health is affected due to poor posture.  Click here to read about other physical affects of posture on your health.

What to do to help posture

1. Be mindful of your posture.  Look at yourself in the mirror and see where your posture falls short.
2. Set reminders to change position frequently and reset your posture closer to “ideal” – future blog will go through this in more detail
3. Set up office equipment to promote natural alignment.  Click here for more detail.
4. Using a sit-stand desk to reduce sitting time.  You will become more active and change your posture more frequently throughout the day.  As a result your body won’t be forced to adapt to positions that pull you away from normal alignment as much as you would from standing all day.
5.  Stretch chest and strengthen back muscles.  The “No Money Exercise” is great for this.  The foam roller is great for elongating the mid back to reverse shoulders rolling forward.  The “No Money Exercise” is more convenient in many situations, but to have greatest effectiveness, the foam roller is great to have in your arsenal (other people will benefit more from the neck roll).  Balancing gym workouts to include “pulling exercise” like pull-ups, chin ups and “row” exercises with the usual bench, shoulder and military presses will avoid the imbalances that aggravate poor posture and stress as well.
6. Chiropractic adjustments.  The Chiropractic adjustment is designed to not only help pain but improve mobility and alignment.  A course of adjustments are often required to improve movement initially.  Vertebra that are stuck can’t move to a better position to start with.  Once the mobility improves, they tend to “rest” closer to the neutral position.  Posture begins to improve and maintain itself with exercise designed to support the alignment and promote mobility.

In future blogs I will discuss several strategies to reduce stress and avoid one of the biggest aggravators to your posture.