MISCELLANEOUS/BEAUTY: POSTURE

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POSTURE

 

Posture is one of those things that you don’t notice unless it’s bad. How often do you comment on someone’s posture? When you’re summing-up someone’s looks, you may consider face, hair, eyes, teeth, boobs, abs, even hands and feet, but do you ever acknowledge their good posture? I think not. (Seriously, take a minute and think about it.)

I thought to write about the importance of good posture because I recently saw a male dancer I know, and he looked a hundred years older than he is. He’s in great shape, and is known to be an excellent dancer. He’s cute, too. But his little bit of being hunched-over just aged him. A lot.

The Olsen twins are perfect to illustate how much better everyone looks standing up straight.

When I was a young dancer, I was always so proud when my teachers would show me to the rest of the class as an example of excellent posture. For some reason, I assumed it was due to my parents being teachers! I attributed all things I was lauded for to them, so I thought we had to stand up straight to have good speech. (Which might be true, anyway.)

Last year, I was at a big event with a man pal of mine, who’s somewhat shorter than I. I was hoping he didn’t feel dwarfed by my height, but I really never want to elect to slouch to appear shorter. As we walked along, he looked up at me, (literally,) and said, “I love that you stand so nice and straight!” The pride at my commitment to stand tall made me stand even taller.

I always ask my friends to just tap me in the middle of my back if they notice me slouching at all, which I do occasionally when I’m tired. I must admit that it’s hard to keep my back in check nowadays since it’s broken in two places, but I still try.

A few years ago, I got brave enough to tell a young girlfriend of mine about her hunching over. She’s short to begin with, so slouching looked much worse on her than it usually does. I showed her some quick exercises to correct it, and never thought about it again. Sometime more recently, something came up about posture in a conversation with her, and I remembered that she used to slouch. I asked what happened to make her stand tall. Her answer was that she listened to me! Wow. That just may be a first from any of my friends. Shame it’s not more. (It would be if they realized that after that, she finally found a husband and is now happily married with a kid. And standing prouder than ever!)

You can see the one on the right is beginning to get that "dowager's hump!"

So, look in the mirror right now, without any semblance of straightening up. If you realize that you do, indeed, slouch, here are just two quick exercises you can do every day to counteract the slouch:

1) Sideways rowing, no machine necessary! Put your fists on your chest, wit your elbows out to the side. Then just think of putting your shoulder blades together. You can also just pull your elbows to the back; it’s the same motion. Do ten, rest, then do ten more, rest, and ten more. Since it’s so easy, you should do that cycle twice a day.

2) Stand up straight. Period. Just kidding. Put your elbows at your side, hands out in front of you, palms facing each other. Bring the palms towards each other, with tension, imagining that they can’t quite make it because there’s something in-between them. Hold for a sec. Do the same pattern as the exercise above.

I swear, these work! I’ve seen it several times with pals. I’m even doing them now to strengthen my broken back. So, if I see any of my pals slouching, I’ll know they missed this column. Or just enjoy rocking a dowager’s hump!

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1 Comment

  1. Posture is very important to many functions of life and the body. A good posture can promote better mood, better digestion, less pain, less fatigue, less stress, more endurance, better lung function, better circulation.

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