Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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Improve your posture
One of the best things we can do to help our health, sense of well-being and also our performance in life is to improve our posture. It's easy to consider posture as something that we see in the mirror and just the external shape of us, but actually, the way we appear is a determined by what is going on inside.
If we are slouched or stooped we may pull ourselves up straight and indeed, didn't we hear our parents telling us to do just that? "Sit up and don't slouch!" But what we inevitably do is make an effort and pull ourselves upright and then try and hold the 'good posture' for as long as we can, but invariably we will tire and collapse back down into the slouch again. So we perceive 'good posture' as being hard work and what other people have but not us. Making such effort to have good posture is not natural.
However, if we look back at how we were as young children then we may see quite a different story. Have a look at some old photos of yourself when you were around 2 or 3 years old. Here's one of me at the age of 3 (I'm trying not to feel embarrassed) but it's probably not too different from ones of you. Apart from my gigantic head that's fit for a soccer world cup match, we are pretty much all the same. We stand freely, in balance and tall at our full height. We may not be very tall people at such an age, but we are not stooping. We are upright and instinctively 'going up' as we subconsciously desire to be 'up tall' like Mum and Dad. At that age we are out-going, gregarious, expansive in nature and also physically. It's natural and our body functions at it's best if it is given maximum internal space.
We have our ancestors to thank for an instinct for good poise. It is part of our birthright and it's what got us onto our feet as a toddler. Evolution has equipped us with the instinct for poise....and also the mechanism to provide it. All the bones and muscles in our body are still in the same place as they were when we were young, it's just that we are doing something different with them now, that we didn't do as youngsters. We have developed some habits that affect our natural poise. Muscular habits of tension put us off balance, shorten our stature, cause a stoop, twist, a hunch or other physical distortion. Postural habits also cause us to breathe inefficiently, to get headaches, backache, stress, poor circulation, digestive disorders, bowel trouble, menstrual irregularities, lethargy, timidity and personal insecurity. And more....
By improving your posture, you are not only likely to look a lot better and be fitter, you can enhance pretty much every aspect of your life. This is because your posture can affect your entire internal functioning....how you feel, how your body digests, breathes, circulates blood....and also how you feel. It is not possible to be entirely confident in yourself if you are physically off balance. Standing on two feet (big as we may think they are, our feet are small in relation to our overall height)...only two feet to balance on rather than a stable four...... balance is a precarious thing. We take it for granted, we can stiffen our legs, ankles and back subconsciously as our survival instinct works to prevent us from falling over. But deep down in our subconscious we know it hurts to fall over, so certain muscles work overtime to keep us up. How better it can be if we are in true balance. With improved physical balance also comes emotional confidence. And confidence is particularly helped when our breathing is working efficiently. Do you hold your breath by habit? Any habitual muscular tensions will detrimentally affect our breathing so we are not getting rid of toxins efficiently or providing adequate amounts of oxygen for our brain and muscles. And puffing or blowing doesn't work either. The breathing mechanism needs to be 'allowed' to work by itself, controlled by the respiratory centre in the brain. It needs to be left alone. But our postural habits interfere with it.
Sort out your posture and you can change a whole load of your life. In short, it's brilliant. But you need to know how. Exercise can be helpful, but it's our attitude that will do the most. How you think can change how you are. If you think loose, you will become loose. If you think tall, you will come up to your full height, without perceived effort. You can tap into your natural instincts for good poise (which are with us until we die). Good poise will work by itself if we let it. The Alexander Technique is a method that helps us get rid of our postural habits and restore natural poise. You might like to try it by having a demonstration or Introductory Session with an Alexander Technique teacher.
For starters you can help your poise by regularly doing a Semi-supine exercise. This will only take 5-15 minutes but can do wonders for your back. Read how to do it here.
We can all do so much to help ourselves. Indeed we are better placed to help ourselves than any specialist, because our brain is in charge of our body. We may need some guidance to start us off, but we ca do so much for ourselves. So if we can think a little, to choose to be looser than we normally are, to think our neck to be free and of our head going upwards (don't push or make effort....just think) then we activate our postural mechanism. This will support us. We just need to rediscover it. We can re-learn it. And it can make you feel soooooooo good.
:-)
