Friday, December 6, 2013
South Africa
Thursday, December 5, 2013
16 tips to improve posture
16 Tips on how to improve posture that can build up a charming, healthy, and elegant person!
Posted by: lien nguyen in Lifestyle 1 day ago 0 13 Views
I. Tips On How To Improve Posture – Useful Ways To Apply:
II. Train Your Core Muscles:
- You should lie on your back, with 2 legs fold to 90 degrees at the knee, and your feet lying on the floor.
- Then, you need to pull your belly-button to your spine. Then, you need to hold it at the end.
- Holding it within about 10 seconds, repeat 8 times every day.
- Breathing normally during this exercise, as you are training your core to be able to keep this position during other daily activities in your life.
- Maintaining the proper posture even if you are feeling tired or getting fatigue and are not using other muscles, such as your butt and back muscles.
- Use a pillow to provide proper support and alignment for the head and shoulders. Do not overdo the pillows when you sleep, and your head can be bent in an unnatural position; this will hurt your posture and you'll wake up feeling stiff, sore, and groggy.
- If you prefer sleeping on your side, you should try slipping a small, flat pillow between your knees to help keep your spine aligned and straight.
- Sleeping on your back will help keep your shoulders straight, and it is usually more comfortable for the back than sleeping on the stomach.
- Using a firmer mattress will help by maintaining proper back support.
- Balance your load to prevent stress and fatigue. If you're carrying a heavy suitcase, for example, change arms frequently. You'll know when.
- Try holding a five pound (2.26kg) sack of flour, and hold it far out in front of you. Now, slowly pull it closer and closer to your chest and feel the different muscle groups come into play as you do this.
- Keep it tight. The closer you keep large or heavy objects to your chest, the less you use your lower back when carrying them. Instead, the work is done with your arms, chest, and upper back.
- If you do a lot of heavy lifting, either as part of weight training or as part of your job, consider wearing a supportive belt. This can help you maintain good posture while lifting.
- When you are lifting something off the ground any heavier than your cat, always bend at the knees, not the waist. Your back muscles are not designed for taking the weight, but your large leg and stomach muscles are. Use them well.
III. Driving Posture:
- You should keep your back against the seat with you head rest
- You need to adjust your seat to maintain a proper distance from the pedals and steering wheel. If you are pointing your toes, leaning forward, or reaching for the wheel, you are too far away. If you are bunched up with your chin on the top of the steering wheel, you are too close.
IV. Sitting Posture:
- You need to keep both of your feet on the ground or footrest (if your legs do not reach all the way to the ground).
- As with standing posture, you need to keep your shoulders squared and straight, your head is upright, and your back, neck, and heels are all aligned.
- You will also need to align your back with the back of the office chair. This action will help you avoid leaning forward or slouching, which you may find yourself doing after sitting too long at your desk.
V. Walking Posture:
- Avoid pushing your head forward.
VI. Standing Posture:
- Pull your head back and up: You should picture yourself reaching for the ceiling with the top of your head. Then, you need to keep your head square on the top of the neck and spine as you do this. This will not just help to improve your posture, but also make you look leaner and taller. Actually, it is very simple to apply, so you should try it once!
- Keep your shoulders squared: at first, it may make you feel unnatural if you have not set up good posture habits. However, similar to standing up straight, this will become the second nature.
- Keep your weight on the balls of your feet: When you rest on your heels, your natural tendency will be to slouch. Instead, you should stand up, and make an effort to stand on the balls of your feet. You need to notice how the rest of your body follows. Now rock back so that your weight is on your heels. You should notice the way your whole body shifts into a "slouchy" posture with this single motion.
- Stand up straight: This is, of course, the key to good standing posture, and bears repeating. As you develop good posture habits, this will become second nature.
- Place your feet about shoulder width apart, the same stance you would use for working out or many other physical activities.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Fwd: An exercise to improve one's hunchback posture.
> An exercise to improve one's hunchback posture and "text Neck" http://wimp.com/improveposture/
>
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Science Behind Posture and how it affects your brain
Hi everyone,This is a REALLY GOOD ARTICLE. Please take a look and notice the importance of POSTURE.http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/11/the-science-behind-posture-and-how-it-affects-your-brain/The Science Behind Posture And How It Affects Your Brain
I'll confess up front: I have terrible posture. It's been bad since at least high school. It's one of those things I keep in the back of my mind as something I know I should do but never get around to, like eating more vegetables and sending more postcards.
This post originally appeared on Buffer
The way we stand, sit and walk, actually has more longer reaching implications on our mood and happiness than we thought. The latest studies reveal it:
Shaking Your Head Will Affect Your Opinion
Body language is closely related to posture — the way we move our bodies affects how others see us as well as our own moods and habits. In terms of scientific research, the two overlap quite a bit. This isn't too surprising, but how our posture and body language affect our thoughts is.
For instance, a study at Ohio State University in 2003 found that our opinions can be subconsciously influenced by our physical behavior. Here are two fascinating examples:
- When participants in the study nodded in agreements or shook their heads to signal disagreement, these actions affected their opinions without them realizing.
- The same study also showed that when participants hugged themselves, they were sometimes able to reduce their physical pain.
Dutch behavioral scientist Erik Peper has done extensive research into this area, as well. He regularly makes participants in his classes stand up and stretch, for similar reasons why exercise has been linked to happiness, like here:
Here are three fascinating things that happened once our posture changes:
- For example, when we sit up straight, we are more likely to remember positive memories or think of something positive in general, according to this experiment.
- Another insight was that if we skip during breaks, we can significantly increase our energy levels. A slow, slumped walk on the other hand, can do the exact opposite and drain us of our energy.
- The study also found that those who were most affected by depression before the study found their energy drained more than others.
So Erik Peper is convinced (and I am, too) that we should keep a careful eye on our posture and body language — lest it bring us down without us realizing.
Posture Changes Our Hormones
When we talk more broadly of body language, as opposed to good posture, we can actually see the affects it has on relationships right throughout the animal kingdom. In particular, body language is used to express power, through expansive postures (i.e. spreading out your limbs and opening up your body) and large body size (or the simple perception of large body size).
You might know about Amy Cuddy's famous Ted Talk and her incredible insights on how posture changes our hormone levels. Well, some even more recent studies took this even further. A study by researchers from Columbia and Harvard Universities showed that body language symbolizing power can actually affect our decision-making, subconsciously. The researchers measured the appetite for risk of participants in either expansive, powerful poses or constricted poses (occupying minimal space, keeping limbs close to the body). Those in the powerful poses not only felt more powerful and in control, but were 45% more likely to take a risky bet.
Plus, the study used saliva samples to prove that expansive postures actually altered the participants' hormone levels — decreasing cortisol (C) and increasing testosterone (T):
This neuroendocrine profile of High T and Low C has been consistently linked to such outcomes as disease resistance and leadership abilities.So clearly, our posture has more to do with our minds we might have thought. And in fact, it seems like our bodies come first — when we alter our posture and body language, it subconsciously influences ourthinking and decision-making.
There's No "One Best" Posture
So if you want to take advantage of these proven benefits to live a healthier and happier life, where should you start? We know that there is a large amount of different areas that can be painful when we have bad posture. Here's just a short list of them:
Unfortunately there's not a whole lot of research into how exactly to adopt good posture — a lot of what we know tends to come from being told to "sit up straight" as children. A study in 1999, however, found that sitting at an angle of 110-130 degrees is optimal for spine comfort, and another in 2007showed that leaning back at 135 degrees is ideal for preventing back strain.
Not only is a position like this difficult to measure and maintain (do you know precisely what angle you're sitting at right now?), not everyone agrees. The team at LUMOback have created a posture sensor that you can wear around your waist during the day to help you develop better posture. The device watches for slouching and shifting to the side, and vibrates to remind you to sit up straight.
The team, which includes a doctor and a data scientist (as well as a medical advisor), doesn't advise the leaning-back position for your workday. Instead, they maintain firstly that "the best posture is always the next posture," or in other words, always keep moving:
We know that many of us have jobs that do require us to spend time working at desks, so knowing how to sit and stand with good posture is certainly important and beneficial to one's health and well-being. That said, the human body was built to move, not spend 8 hours at a computer.Walking around helps your body to reset itself into healthy posture, so make a point to get up from your desk at least twice an hour.
When you maintain a neutral pelvic position with a straight and upright back, the vertebrae in your back are nicely aligned. This takes a lot of pressure off of your spine and back muscles, which can reduce back pain.
In an office setting, you're likely to have to crane your neck to see your computer screen and strain your upper back and shoulders to reach a keyboard. Thus, any potential lower back benefits of a reclined position are outweighed by the negative impacts on your upper back and neck.For now, I'm going to give sitting up straight a go. If nothing else, at least I know it will probably put me in a good mood!
The Science of Posture [Buffer]
Belle Beth Cooper is a content crafter at Buffer and co-founder of Hello Code. She writes about social media, startups, lifehacking and science.
Science Behind Posture and how it affects your brain
The Science Behind Posture And How It Affects Your Brain
I'll confess up front: I have terrible posture. It's been bad since at least high school. It's one of those things I keep in the back of my mind as something I know I should do but never get around to, like eating more vegetables and sending more postcards.
This post originally appeared on Buffer
The way we stand, sit and walk, actually has more longer reaching implications on our mood and happiness than we thought. The latest studies reveal it:
Shaking Your Head Will Affect Your Opinion
Body language is closely related to posture — the way we move our bodies affects how others see us as well as our own moods and habits. In terms of scientific research, the two overlap quite a bit. This isn't too surprising, but how our posture and body language affect our thoughts is.
For instance, a study at Ohio State University in 2003 found that our opinions can be subconsciously influenced by our physical behavior. Here are two fascinating examples:
- When participants in the study nodded in agreements or shook their heads to signal disagreement, these actions affected their opinions without them realizing.
- The same study also showed that when participants hugged themselves, they were sometimes able to reduce their physical pain.
Dutch behavioral scientist Erik Peper has done extensive research into this area, as well. He regularly makes participants in his classes stand up and stretch, for similar reasons why exercise has been linked to happiness, like here:
Here are three fascinating things that happened once our posture changes:
- For example, when we sit up straight, we are more likely to remember positive memories or think of something positive in general, according to this experiment.
- Another insight was that if we skip during breaks, we can significantly increase our energy levels. A slow, slumped walk on the other hand, can do the exact opposite and drain us of our energy.
- The study also found that those who were most affected by depression before the study found their energy drained more than others.
So Erik Peper is convinced (and I am, too) that we should keep a careful eye on our posture and body language — lest it bring us down without us realizing.
Posture Changes Our Hormones
When we talk more broadly of body language, as opposed to good posture, we can actually see the affects it has on relationships right throughout the animal kingdom. In particular, body language is used to express power, through expansive postures (i.e. spreading out your limbs and opening up your body) and large body size (or the simple perception of large body size).
You might know about Amy Cuddy's famous Ted Talk and her incredible insights on how posture changes our hormone levels. Well, some even more recent studies took this even further. A study by researchers from Columbia and Harvard Universities showed that body language symbolizing power can actually affect our decision-making, subconsciously. The researchers measured the appetite for risk of participants in either expansive, powerful poses or constricted poses (occupying minimal space, keeping limbs close to the body). Those in the powerful poses not only felt more powerful and in control, but were 45% more likely to take a risky bet.
Plus, the study used saliva samples to prove that expansive postures actually altered the participants' hormone levels — decreasing cortisol (C) and increasing testosterone (T):
This neuroendocrine profile of High T and Low C has been consistently linked to such outcomes as disease resistance and leadership abilities.
So clearly, our posture has more to do with our minds we might have thought. And in fact, it seems like our bodies come first — when we alter our posture and body language, it subconsciously influences ourthinking and decision-making.
There's No "One Best" Posture
So if you want to take advantage of these proven benefits to live a healthier and happier life, where should you start? We know that there is a large amount of different areas that can be painful when we have bad posture. Here's just a short list of them:
Unfortunately there's not a whole lot of research into how exactly to adopt good posture — a lot of what we know tends to come from being told to "sit up straight" as children. A study in 1999, however, found that sitting at an angle of 110-130 degrees is optimal for spine comfort, and another in 2007showed that leaning back at 135 degrees is ideal for preventing back strain.
Not only is a position like this difficult to measure and maintain (do you know precisely what angle you're sitting at right now?), not everyone agrees. The team at LUMOback have created a posture sensor that you can wear around your waist during the day to help you develop better posture. The device watches for slouching and shifting to the side, and vibrates to remind you to sit up straight.
The team, which includes a doctor and a data scientist (as well as a medical advisor), doesn't advise the leaning-back position for your workday. Instead, they maintain firstly that "the best posture is always the next posture," or in other words, always keep moving:
We know that many of us have jobs that do require us to spend time working at desks, so knowing how to sit and stand with good posture is certainly important and beneficial to one's health and well-being. That said, the human body was built to move, not spend 8 hours at a computer.
Walking around helps your body to reset itself into healthy posture, so make a point to get up from your desk at least twice an hour.
When you maintain a neutral pelvic position with a straight and upright back, the vertebrae in your back are nicely aligned. This takes a lot of pressure off of your spine and back muscles, which can reduce back pain.
In an office setting, you're likely to have to crane your neck to see your computer screen and strain your upper back and shoulders to reach a keyboard. Thus, any potential lower back benefits of a reclined position are outweighed by the negative impacts on your upper back and neck.
For now, I'm going to give sitting up straight a go. If nothing else, at least I know it will probably put me in a good mood!
The Science of Posture [Buffer]
Belle Beth Cooper is a content crafter at Buffer and co-founder of Hello Code. She writes about social media, startups, lifehacking and science.