What is a posture? Posture is the alignment and positioning of our body with respect to earth's gravitational force. This gravitational force, also known as gravity, continuously exerts a force on our body. A good posture ensures that this force is evenly distributed throughout our body's muscles, joints and ligaments. This is achieved by training our body to lie, sit, stand, and walk in positions that involve the least strain being exerted on supporting ligaments and muscles, while moving or engaging in weight-bearing activities.
Good posture is vital for our body. Despite knowing this fact, our daily activities are often performed with bad postures, primarily, because of ignorance and absence of the much-required will. In addition to laziness, another common problem, obesity, is continuously changing the way our muscles and skeleton support themselves, thereby affecting them. The habit of poor posture is nurtured over time and we tend to address it only when the alarm of pain rings at its loudest. This pain, caused due to poor posture, is often experienced in our shoulders, neck or back. Correcting our body posture may feel uncomfortable initially because the body had been used to particular positions while sitting, standing, and sleeping. Though, with continuous practice, good posture shall become the natural posture of the body, thereby supporting its overall wellbeing.
One must ensure to maintain the spine's neutral shape i.e. the S-shape. This shape is formed by the natural curves present in our spine. On viewing from the side, you would be able to see a slight inward curve in the upper (known as cervical) and lower (known as lumbar) portion of the spine, and a gentle outward curve in the centre (known as thoracic) portion of the spine. Good posture helps us in maintaining these natural curves, whereas poor posture can significantly stress or pull muscles, thereby causing pain.
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The health-related benefits obtained by developing a good posture extend to all parts of the body. ...
...To know all of them, also to know properly the poor and correct postures for some of the activities like standing/ walking, sitting, sleeping, driving etc. that we perform throughout our lives, read the complete article in Mar'18 edition of English Akhand Gyan Monthly Magazine.
