How to Fix Your Posture to Reduce Stress and Anxiety
Your health and mental strength depend on your pose.
Did you know that your posture can immediately change how you feel?
Scientists at Harvard found strong evidence that our body postures impact our mood, attitude towards others, decision making, and most importantly, our self-esteem.
The way you sit and stand increase or decrease feelings of power. Your pose impacts your confidence, your ability to make bold decisions and take on big responsibilities.
Bad postures raise your stress and lower your confidence.
If you self-hug and close your legs while sitting, you make what researchers refer to as a contractive posture or weakness pose.
A weakness pose signals vulnerability — you take in this posture to protect yourself against external danger. Therefore, your brain kicks stress hormones, and you feel more anxious and smaller.
Watch how you sit, stand, and walk. Weakness poses come in many forms: slumped shoulders, arched back, knees on the chest, low-hanging head, and gazing at your feet are all weak body postures.
Weakness poses not only harm your psyche but can have devastating effects on your long-term health.
When you adopt a weak pose, your lungs contract, and your spine twists, this makes your breathing shallow and increases the pressure on your lower back discs: both effects damage your health down the road.
Power poses lower your stress, anxiety, and boost your confidence.
Ideally, always keep a robust and healthy posture while working, walking, or standing.
Don’t spread your arms and legs like a spider or stand like Wonderwoman in public spaces. You can adopt a power pose without taking anyone’s space or being rude to people talking to you.
When you sit, keep a straight back, pumped chest, and parallel legs. When you walk, keep shoulders back, chest high, and back straight. When you stand, stand tall, chin up, hands by your sides.
When you power-pose, you immediately increase your confidence, lower your stress and anxiety, and boost your self-esteem. It also makes you recall good memories, and help you exit bad moods.
Not only is power posing beneficial for your mind, but good postures, in general, have a transformative effect on your long term health. They encourage better blood circulation, help you breathe properly, and decrease the chances of lower back pain when you get older.
Practice power posing and notice how you feel.
Build a habit of watching your posture when you work, walk, or stand.
We know the mind affects the body. Yet, recent discoveries clearly show the opposite is also true: our bodies impact our minds.
Do a power pose for a minute or two and notice the immediate effect on your mood and feelings.
You can practice power posing in private to build confidence and lower your stress before your next job interview, your next meeting, or your next sports game.
Whenever you notice yourself slouching, or making yourself small, go big, expand, and feel the strength within.
Your power pose will command your mind to own the day.
“It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.” — Millard Fuller
