Stand Up Straight to be your Best Self

Stand Up Straight

TO BE YOUR Best Self

by Lynell Cavner, Owner & Master Certified Bowen Practitioner, Lynell & Company

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan, said: “A woman is like a tea bag. You cannot tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water!” Does your posture exude this statement?

The device age is upon us — escaping the sitting/ slouching in front of a computer screen or the forward head bend looking at your phone is nearly impossible.

My mother was adamant about having “good, strong, upright posture” (she was 5-feet 8-inches beautiful with confident posture). She would often say: “The taller and straighter you stand gives more room for your food processes; you won’t get a stomachache.”

Instead of just saying “stand up straight,” she always presented her reasoning behind the actions she gave.

Her trick to helping her girls stand up straight and have good posture was to have us place a large book on our head and walk the length of our living room, making a smooth turn and retracing our steps — each night for 15 minutes throughout our middle school years. It worked!

When we have good posture, we feel more confident. We look taller and slimmer! Who wouldn’t want that? And, we don’t have that “forward head thing” (otherwise known as kyphosis) going on.

Kyphosis is the abnormal rounding of the upper back — often caused by poor posture. It may cause shortness of breath and anxiety because the lungs don’t have enough room to expand. The trap muscles are weak, which allow the shoulders to rotate and droop forward.

On a chemical level, our great posture influences how we feel by helping to stimulate happy, powerful hormones that reflect our physical goals. Working on good posture will insure we stay involved in physical activity and bring about confident views to help you be ready for anything.

Our bodies are amazing at adapting. Whatever is introduced to it over and over again, it will do what it’s designed to do — adapt!

Sit on the edge of your chair making your erectors strong, roll those shoulders, do a few side bends, and get up every hour to walk around. Added benefits of good posture are fewer headaches and less neck and shoulder pain.

Posture is telling yourself and the world around you how you feel about yourself, so stand up straight, strong and confident!