I am Obsessed with Posture

A few years ago I noticed myself in a video. And I was disgusted.

Why?

I could finally see myself from the side and from the back. And I hated my posture.

“I really look like that?” I thought to myself. I never really see myself from the side and had no idea how bad my posture was.

I used to go to the gym and work out when I was younger. And I’m a runner. So I didn’t have the worst posture in the world.

But it was bad enough that I decided I needed to change it. In fact I became a bit obsessed with changing my posture.

This is something I’ve been working on for years. I previously wrote an article about Alexander Technique, which is well worth the investment.

Why Change Your Posture

Posture has a huge affect on attraction.

Of all the things you can do to improve your physical attractiveness, one of the most important–if not the most important–is improving your posture.

Guys don’t realize how much tension they hold in their shoulders.

They carry a constant, low-level tension that manifests as poor posture. And then when the guy talks to a woman, it gets even worse.

Most guys are completely unaware of the subtle changes their bodies go through when they interact with women.

Women, even if they don’t consciously notice it, react emotionally to your body language. If you’re tense they sense it and respond in kind: with apprehension and uneasiness.

In many ways, fixing your posture is better than going to the gym and getting muscles. If I had a choice between having perfect posture or muscles the size of Schwarznegger in his prime, I would choose perfect posture.

It’s not easy to simply change your posture. There is an inner game as well as outer game component.

The inner game component revolves around the idea of dominant versus submissive signals.

Socially dominant individuals act more “confident.” They send signals to other people that communicate their social dominance.

These signals indicate that they consider themselves strong. They are touting their own power.

These signals include: increased eye contact, louder voice tone, and taking up more space.

One can understand these signals as leadership signals. A leader is comfortable being the center of attention. He is used to talking to groups of people.

The converse is a guy with no confidence. He is shy. He hides. He tries to make himself smaller and less susceptible to public scrutiny.

This protects him from attacks from which he knows he can’t defend himself.

The signals he sends off include things that help him hide and not show dominance or challenge to other individuals.

These signals show him to be self-protective rather than open and comfortable.

These behaviors include speaking quietly, putting his hands in his pockets, and taking up as little space as possible.

One of the most important aspects of submissive behavior comes into play with posture. His posture constantly belies his self-confidence.

Guys with unconfident posture fall into a stereotypical pattern.

Their posture is hunched and turtled. Their shoulders are rounded. The head is pulled forward.

Babies have perfect posture.

But years of acting submissive and feeling the stress of dominant individuals changes the posture to look more like the guy on the left.

It is made worse by spending years sitting in front of a computer, hunched over a computer screen.

You look at a picture like the one here and it makes you want to stand up straight and look like the guy on the right rather than the guy on the left.

But it’s not that simple.

How to Change Your Posture

When I was a kid sitting at the dinner table, my grandmother used to say “Sit up straight!” And I would do my best to lift my shoulders and sit straight. Literally 30 seconds later I was back to my old position.

If you’ve ever tried to change your posture, you know that it is not an easy thing. Posture takes time to fix. It may take years of practice. But the payoff is well worth it.

Changing your posture is not what most people think it is. Tell your average person to stand up straight, and he usually raises his shoulders when instead he should be pulling them back and lowering them.

Pull shoulders back and down.

One of the first things to think about with changing your posture is pulling your shoulders back and down. This is the main problem people have, and what causes them to “turtle.”

When you pull your shoulders down and back, you are pushing out your chest, exposed to the world instead of acting self-protective.

Good posture is not simply about “holding” a position. It’s as much about relaxation as it is about tension. Good posture will start to feel like your body is in harmony, not like you are trying to hold a position.

At first it will feel awkward, but the more you practice it–and the more strength you get–the more you start to get comfortable with good posture and less comfortable with hunched, turtled posture.

Good posture feels like the way you would stretch after a prolonged period in a constricted space, like on a long plane flight or car ride.

You naturally start to move toward that enlarged, expanded body position and feel confined by the previous position.

Corner Stretch. I love this exercise. Over the last year or so it has grown into my favorite exercise. It’s fairly simple.

Find a corner. Spread your arms out like Jesus on the Cross. And walk yourself into the corner. Try to see if I can get your nipples to touch the walls.

Once you’re there, hold yourself in that position for a while. I like to hold myself for 45-60 full deep breaths.

This stretch is amazing in that it really pulls your shoulders back and helps you to practice good positioning. It also strengthens your pectoral muscles because of the counter-tension.

Forward rotation of the head. This is a concept from Alexander Technique and it’s key to good posture.

The best way to understand this concept is to stand with your back against a wall. Be as relaxed as possible.

Now see if you can touch the back of your head to the wall as well, except watch your nose. Keep your nose at exactly the same level when you pull your head back.

What happens is a ‘forward rotation of the head.’ Your nose almost drops a bit and the back of your head raises up.

This elongates the spine and gives your neck more freedom of movement. It counters the head-forward slouch you see in the picture above.

Lift head as high as possible. Another way to visualize good posture is to raise your head as high as possible.

Without rotating your head to look upwards, lift your head or eyes are as high as they can go.

Avoid sitting in chairs for long periods of time. Sitting in a chair is actually not a very natural human position.

One of the biggest culprits of bad posture is sitting at a desk all day in front of a computer. This can easily cause hunched shoulders and bad head positioning. For a lot of people, there may not be another option.

But if you do need to do a lot of computer work some alternate options may be lying flat on the floor or a bed with a laptop, getting an chair with posture support, or standing at your desk at intervals.

Posture Corrector. In my pursuit of perfect posture, I bought this brace from Amazon. It pulls your shoulders back exactly how they should be.

For a while I tried to wear it all the time, but that didn’t work out. It’s too bulky and makes my arm numb.

I still do use it for a few hours a day if I’m hanging out at home, and it really does seem to “train” me to hold the correct position.

Here’s a few more tips for when you work on your posture;

It’s easier to correct posture while walking. One of the best times to focus on posture is when you’re walking around. It’s much easier to change your posture when walking then when standing or sitting.

Focus on your posture first thing. Try to focus on your posture first thing in the morning when you get up, first thing when you leave your house, and first thing when you stand up from where you’re sitting.

Exercise regularly. I find that it’s easier to correct my posture if I’ve been doing regular exericse, like running. This may be because my muscles are a lot less tense.

It may feel awkward at first. At first when you start to change your posture, you may feel awkward.

It may feel like you’re sticking your chest out too far. Keep going with this, it will start to feel less awkward with more practice.

Changing posture changes your breathing. It changes the entire internal structure of your organs and body cavity muscles.

It allows you to breath more freely. But it may feel strange at first.

Once you start to focus on posture more, you notice it everywhere, on men and on women.

A lot of people have bad posture, and you may start to notice consciously how posture affects your attraction for people where previously it was subconscious.

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posted in Body Language, Self-Improvement Strategies