Easy Ways to Actually Improve Your Posture

You’ve probably heard about “tech neck”—the head-drooped, shoulders-forward pose many of us strike while crouched at a computer or peering into our phones. The more time a person spends in this position, the more the body’s muscles and ligaments embrace it as normal. The result is poor posture, which may have repercussions far beyond appearances. “We live in a world now where slouching is highly promoted because we’re sitting in chairs and our body is in a collapsed position,” says Erik Peper, a professor in the department of health education at San Francisco State University. “If you have any history of exhaustion or negative thoughts, I would say that this body position amplifies them.” It’s true: Peper has conducted a series of studies on posture and how it can influence a person’s mood, energy levels and cognitive performance. Some of his research has found that slouching promotes low mood and decreased energy levels. One of his forthcoming studies shows that slouching can even impair student performance on a math test. Human emotion and cognition are closely linked to body posture, Peper says, and this link operates like a two-way street. Feeling depressed or frightened can cause a person’s head to drop or his posture to become tight and closed, but assuming these poses also seems to promote feelings of depression or fear. “We’ve looked at brain activity using EEG, and we found th...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Exercise/Fitness healthytime Source Type: news