During lockdown 2020 I became aware that I hadn’t been taking the best care of my posture. I had started to get quite complacent, working sometimes on my bed with my laptop or hunched up in an armchair. It wasn’t until I started getting some soreness in my right shoulder that I started to become conscious of my relaxed “chilling” habits.
I got in touch with Heather Snyder at The Graceful Body, New York, a well known posture coach in her field. I had a virtual consultation with Heather and we discussed the dangers of ‘text neck’ which is ever increasing in our digital society. Just from a quick evaluation, we discovered that I had a minor misalignment that was pushing my shoulders forward and my hips back (almost in an S shape) due to lifestyle habits.
This is very common however it’s not something that we want to ignore. Heather’s usual patients are over 50 and the reason for that is because we often do not consciously think of these things until they add up to bigger problems like major back issues or needing surgery. My misalignment can be easily fixed with some conscious daily habit changes and Heather’s quick and effective tool on how better to hold myself. By taking charge of this now, I can completely fix this in a few short weeks and also prevent any larger issues from occurring further down the line. We are not taught in school how to hold ourselves and I truly believe this should be taught alongside exercise classes. Healthy posture is so important because it is integral to our spine health. I also felt the benefit of easier breathing from the minor postural alignment. It improves our digestion as we aren’t compressing our body and it even impacts our mindset positively!
Heather taught me a trick of how to sit properly which sounds very basic but it is amazing how many of us don’t know how to sit properly. She also gave me tips on how to best hold my mobile phone to avoid neck strain and how to position my computer at the desk when working. She also taught me a simple yet effective way of checking that my posture is correct and how to hold this position throughout the day.
How do I feel? After several weeks of putting the new techniques into practice I feel stronger in my back. I definitely look better and the new habits are starting to become the “norm” without me having to think so much about it.
Heather was amazingly knowledgeable. I recommend we all start taking into consideration our posture as part of our lifestyle. Heather has an online posture course that gives step A to Z info on how to take care of your skeletal health. You can check her out on Instagram @good.posture.mama and www.thegracefulbody.com for more info! Learning good posture is not only a gift to ourselves but that knowledge can then be passed down and educated to our children so that they learn good habits from the start.
It’s so important that we start looking at the root of problems through holistic means to protect and preserve our health so that we rely less on conventional medicine long term. Prevention is better than cure!
Love Luissa, The Official Green Queen <3
