I have terrible posture. I know that my slouching shoulders and downward gaze are directly related to the sore neck and back that have plagued me most of my adult life.
Thirty years ago I started to realize that I didn’t need to hunch over to hide my breasts. And yet… it has been (and remains) a huge struggle to undo the habit that came with with being a bigger girl in a world where role models were stick-thin.
Good posture would help me with all my fitness activities, especially dance and horseback riding. It’s really hard to engage your core properly if one half is stretched and the other half is squished.
It will be increasingly important as I age. A strong, straight spine will help with balance (and lower the risk of falls). It helps maintain a wider range of motion, increased lung capacity, and reduce pain.
Changing the habit is at least as much mental as physical. I do all my little stretches and rolling my shoulders down and back, but what really works for me is visualization. A favourite dance teacher used to tell my class to stand up straight and show off our jewels. The double entendre always made us giggle, but we did make an effort to look a bit more like this:
Imagining myself as a real queen helps too – my favourite is Queen Latifah. She looks so tall and confident in every picture I can find. Look for yourself and you too will be exclaiming “Queen!”
Remembering to hold my head a little higher and pull my shoulders down and away from my ears makes me feel more like a Queen!, or at least a queen. I can feel my abdominal muscles lengthening and engaging the moment I sit or stand up straight. I even get a little smile going.
I hope I have at least another 30 years to work on wearing that imaginary crown and showing off those jewels.
