This article was initially written for a blog title “The Health Drop”, which Dr Steph, our chiro at Cable Beach Chiropractic in Broome, WA, once started with fellow chiropractor Dr. Amy Lauren. The message still stands! If you’re unable to sit upright without pain, need help with your desk ergonomics, get rib pain or upper back tension, get in touch with your Broome chiropractor Dr. Steph at Cable Beach Chiropractic.
“Sit up! Shoulders back! Don’t slouch!”
We are certain that nearly every child dating back to biblical times has heard these words more than once. But were our mothers right to berate us over our teenage hunches?
You do not need to be a chiropractor to know that poor posture has a negative and potentially damaging effect on your spine. But sitting up straight certainly does affect our physical body in a few surprising ways. Science has shown that good posture improves your mood. When your back is upright with your shoulders back, you have increased confidence and positive feelings. Straight posture is linked to an increase in sense of power, helping you feel more secure and comfortable in your world.
The link between good posture and positive thinking has been well established. One experiment demonstrated that when we sit up straight, our positive thinking and our memory of positive situations improves. Opening our posture even increases our willingness to engage in risk.
Open, expansive postures also alter our hormones. When we open our arms and our chests, straightening our spines, levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) decrease, and levels of testosterone increase. This in turn is linked to improved leadership skills and increased disease resistance. Raised testosterone is also linked to improved cognition, aka smarts!
Adopting a straight-up posture not only affects our perception of ourselves, but it can change someone else's perception of us! Studies have shown that people think that those who sit up straight are smarter than those who slouch, just the same as we consider those who wear glasses to be smarter than those who do not (source).
This is certainly reason enough to sit up straight, but how does this help our brains?
Sitting straight increases the capacity of your lungs to draw in air. When we slouch, our rib cage closes down, our shoulders round and our chest volume decreases, leading to reduced respiratory volume. When we reverse this, sitting or standing straight with our shoulders back and chest open, our lungs can expand properly. This in turn allows for more oxygen to reach the brain, which is essential for it to function optimally (source).
Our brains use 20% of our oxygen intake. For an organ that accounts for only 2% of our body weight, it is certainly needy when it comes to oxygen! Without adequate oxygen, our concentration and thinking ability starts to decrease, which means we can’t perform mental tasks to our best ability.
Further, adopting an open posture signals to our body that we are safe and all is well (down-regulating the evolutionary fight-flight response of our sympathetic nervous system- a topic for another day). According to Erik Peper, an authority on the subject, we are unable to think creatively and abstractly when our sympathetic nervous system is in overdrive, aka open posture equals an open mind.
So we know sitting straighter improves our feeling of power, facilitates positive thinking, our feelings of confidence, and is linked to improved cognition and creative thinking. But does this amount to us getting smarter? To be completely honest, the link is not conclusive. But we think we can safely say that sitting up straight is much better for you than slouching. And at the very least, your colleagues will think you’re smarter if you sit up straight (and put your glasses on), and that’s basically the same thing right.
How’s your posture holding up? Book in with your Broome chiropractor Dr. Steph at Cable Beach Chiropractic for a check up - link on the main website page.
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