The Myth and Mystique of Good Posture

What is good posture? It’s a thing that you may be able to picture (and assume once you are reminded) yet this ever-elusive condition escapes us all too often once our mind wanders off to other things. There are many reasons why good posture is helpful and something worth striving towards but there are also reasons why it can never be achieved in the ideal way you imagine.

Posture is more than just a position held for a period of time, its a shifting and constantly changing state that becomes a dynamic reflection of one’s life experience expressed through the body. As you might recognize, everyone is built differently so someone’s posture or position should be equally different- like a more complicated version of a fingerprint. So if we are all unique what does good posture even look like? Can one person’s posture be better than another’s? Can someone have a “good” fingerprint while others have a “bad” fingerprint? Lastly, knowing that there are inevitable benefits to good posture, does homogenizing the idea of “good posture” serve to benefit or hinder people given their individual variabilities? There is much more to explore than what first meets the eye but I can assure you its worth knowing to give you piece of mind and a little self-forgiveness while sitting at your desk.

The brain is a complicated place when it comes to your body and how it moves. Generally speaking there are areas that allow for conscious movement, unconscious movement and initiation or coordination of movement. These areas (and more) need to communicate at all times to keep you reacting and responding to your environment but when it comes to “static” posture (your body’s position when you are still) there are two main areas that are worth looking at in more detail.

The conscious part of your movement is found in the frontal lobe of your brain called the primary motor cortex. It’s the area that is used when you decide to hold “good posture” after noticing that you’re slouching. The frontal lobe is also responsible for making many other decisions in your life and is easily distracted leaving you slouched all over again. Although your thoughts shifted away from your good posture, you didn’t fall over completely and stayed upright to some degree. So, what is keeping everyone upright (albeit slouched) while they are sitting, standing, walking etc.?

The brain stem is the subconscious area of your brain that is more concerned with the nuts and bolts of posture to keep you from falling to the floor. Its where the hard work is done, it’s a place where getting distracted from your tasks could mean life or death- the frontal lobe could never make it in the world of the brainstem. Its responsible for things like breathing, heart rate, blood pressure and reactionary reflexes. When it comes to movement, it deals with a whole lot more. It integrates and responds to all the stimuli from your body and together with the cerebellum, executes a plan to move in the best way possible.

Within the brainstem lives the Ponto-medullary Reticular Formation (or PMRF for short) that works collectively to govern the muscle tone in your body without you knowing. Its less concerned with how you stand so long as you are standing at the end of the day- good posture or not. To keep you upright, there is a balance between the muscles on the front and the back of your body known as flexors and extensors respectively. If the flexors are too dominant you would be liable to fall forward or be hunched over. Alternatively, if the extensors along the back of your body are overly dominant you will have a preference for standing upright and on your heels. Some areas of your body receive more flexor tone while other areas receive more extensor tone to strike a balance generally speaking. No need to place your blame the PMRF as the bad guy for your posture though, its more of the messenger that relays information from your visual system, vestibular system and the joints/muscles/fascia in your body. With this information, it calculates the best strategy to keep you standing based off of a large amount of information such as old injuries, postural habits, and new feedback like a gust of wind or bumping into someone. Its quite a remarkable feat!

So what about that good posture? Yes, some postures are better than others but it’s relative to many things. Some people might have suffered a previous injury that created a different motor pattern or strength imbalance contributing to their posture. Others might have had health history relating to concussions or ear infections that still affects the integration of sensory information for example. These factors are all taken under consideration by the brain to formulate the best option for your posture. It might seem like it’s working against you leading to arthritis or degenerative issues in specific areas but these are sacrifices that it makes (without your permission) to keep you moving optimally day to day.

You can conciously change your posture for a short time, but your true posture is determined by your brain subconsciously. Trust that your brain knows best; constantly beating it into submission by striving for that mythical pose of “good posture” might actually be counter productive knowing that it instantly accounts for more information that you can comprehend.

That being said, how can you make changes to your posture that help in the long run?

• Move regularly

  Improving the motion of your anatomy gives new sensory information that your subconscious brain picks up on and will adapt to. It doesn’t want to be stuck in the same pattern but in order to change habits, you need to provide new opportunities for it to build upon.

• Seek assistance

  Movement professionals and therapists inherently give your body more feedback and opportunity to change- its what they do for a living.

• Deal with your injuries

  Even minor ones that happened years ago will affect you to this day. You may not be aware of it consciously, but now you know that nothing escapes your subconscious brain when it comes to movement!

• Find variety

  Variety is more than the spice of life, it’s the necessity for life to continue. Find variety in your work life, home life and make time to play and learn new things. These will all contribute positively to your brain and how it uses your body by stepping outside of your routine.

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