Bad posture, what does it say about you?
Posture is more than just a bunch of reflexive muscle actions and the anatomy of your skeletal system.
Your posture is in part an outward projection of your emotional state!
Posture tells us a lot about ‘Who you are’ and ‘How you are’ before we’ve even said Hello! We all make subconscious assumptions about others for many reasons, including one’s posture. A person’s posture can infer whether they are safe or not to approach, if they are confident or nervous or if they are healthy or sick etc.
So what does your posture say about you?
Different emotional states cause you to adopt different postures.
Think about your body language and posture when you are happy and relaxed compared to when you are sad or uncertain for example. Or conversely, think about the activities you adopt when you are in various states of mind and what they are doing to your body posturing.
A slumped or collapsed body posture can be related to negative emotions and states of mind.
The more chronic the emotional state, the more fixed the postural dysfunction may become. Until in the end, it becomes a problem of its own irrespective of whether your emotional state is a positive or negative one at any given time.
With this is mind you could be having a great day, but because of the 12 months of stress, you worked through before that day your posture has suffered and you now stand as if you are having the worst day in your life.
So an idea to think about, which is starting to gain more momentum. Is that your physical posture can affect your emotion state and mood. Rather than your mood affecting your posture, your posture now can affect your mood. Therefore by addressing the faults in your physical posture, this may assist in your emotional state. Allowing you to take more control over your own wellbeing and health.
Dr Andrew Richards
Dr Laura Montgomery
