Feeling Blue? Improve Your Posture to Improve Your Mood

Did you see what happened this week? Old Man Winter finally found us. Even the best winter coat struggles to keep you warm with a windchill warning and a frostbite advisory. What happens to your body when it’s so cold outside? You shrink, you contract, you hunch over, all in an effort to protect yourself from losing body heat. You’re trying to make yourself smaller - to have less real estate exposed to the cold. The only problem is we forget to “un-hunch” when we finally get out of the cold.

iHunch/iPosture

But that’s not the only thing adding to our hunched-over appearance. Our increasingly sedentary lifestyle coupled with our tendency towards iPosture is wreaking havoc on our bodies. What’s iPosture, you ask? If you’re hunched over a device, you’ve got iPosture. (1) It’s also been referred to as iHunch by New Zealand physiotherapist, Steve August.  (2)  Do you remember when a dowager's hump could only be seen on a little old lady? Well, that's no longer the case - thanks to smartphones and other tech devices, the "upper back forward hunch" of the elderly is no longer age-specific. August has been studying and treating the iHunch for 30 years. And this posture isn't just bad for our muscles and joints - it also impacts our mood: "the slouchy, collapsed position we take when using our phones actually makes us less assertive — less likely to stand up for ourselves when the situation calls for it".
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August and his colleagues found that the smaller the electronic device, the more insidious the effect: "the smaller the device, the more you must contract your body to use it, and the more shrunken and inward your posture, the more submissive you are likely to become."

Look familiar?!

Power Poses

Poor posture affects you physically, mentally and emotionally. You’ve heard me talk about the physical effects of iPosture - misalignment in your body that leads to joint pain and weak and/or tight muscles. But did you know that how you hold your body also affects your attitude and self-esteem? If you haven’t seen Amy Cuddy’s seminal 2012 TEDTalk, take a moment to watch it:

As Cuddy says, “Two minutes is all you need…Tiny tweaks lead to big changes.” Cuddy and her colleagues had research participants assume “powerful” or “powerless” poses for 2 minutes and they then measured their hormone levels.

The results? The hormonal changes in their brain chemistry showed increased confidence and risk-taking for those who had done power poses; while the powerless posers had decreased confidence and risk-taking. In essence, the powerless poses had increased their stress hormone (cortisol) and decreased their risk-taking hormone (testosterone).

Defining Power Poses

“The high-power poses were both expansive (meaning that the body took up a significant amount of space) and open (meaning that the limbs were held far away from the body), and the low-power poses were constricted and clenched”. ​(1, p. 199)

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Power Poses and the Link to Exercise

Amy Cuddy has just published a book called “Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges”, where she delves more deeply into how your body affects your mind. It’s social science meets fitness in a great read: “By adopting open, expansive postures, we make ourselves feel better…more powerful, confident, and assertive, less stressed and anxious, and happier and more optimistic.” (p. 207) 

Open posture…expansive…this sounds to me like a job for an Essentrics posture fix!

According to a recent Fast Company review of the connection between posture and mood, people in slouched positions recall negative traits and powerless feelings about themselves more easily. (4) Conversely, people who are sitting up straight - i.e., with improve posture - more readily recall positive traits and empowering thoughts about themselves.
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This month’s appearance on Daytime Ottawa was all about improving your posture to improve your mood. Take a look:

A 2-minute Essentrics Posture Fix

If you don’t have time to watch my latest appearance, I’ll summarize the exercises below:

1. Stand firmly - plant yourself evenly on both feet, finding your triangle under each foot. [sidebar: if you don’t know what I mean by your triangle, read this blog post: http://www.essentricswithamanda.com/blog/put-your-best-foot-forward ]
2. Pull up - pull up in your spine Imagine someone is pulling you towards the ceiling by the crown of your head, and feel your spinal column expand as you un-hunch your body.
3. Beach ball - lift your arms in front of you as if you’re hugging a large beach ball. Slowly wrap your arms around the ball, following the circumference of it, bending your knees and tucking your bum under. As you bring your arms around close to your body, straighten your back and your legs and reach up with your arms.
4. Ceiling reaches - straighten your arms and drop your shoulders; alternate pulling one arm further to the ceiling and then the other. Don’t lean over as you reach up - you want to feel one side of your spinal column and then the other lengthening against gravity.
5. Open chest swan - with both arms reaching up, pull them slightly behind your head to feel a stretch in your chest. Slowly pull your arms back and down, as if you are a swan opening up its wings in a power pose.
6. Starfish arms - begin with your arms at your side, drop your shoulders and roll them backwards (sliding those shoulder blades into your back pockets), as you push your fingers towards the floor. Slowly pump your arms towards the ceiling in a star formation, opening your chest, pulling out from your shoulders and up in your spine at all times.

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References

Images courtesy of Pixabay - copyright-free images: https://pixabay.com

1. Amy Cuddy, Presence: Bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges. 2015, Little, Brown and Company, New York.
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/opinion/sunday/your-iphone-is-ruining-your-posture-and-your-mood.html?ref=opinion&_r=3
3. Amy Cuddy’s 2012 TEDTalk: https://youtu.be/Ks-_Mh1QhMc
4. http://www.fastcompany.com/3041688/body-week/the-surprising-and-powerful-links-between-posture-and-mood
5. Essentrics on Daytime Ottawa: https://youtu.be/r5oovlyf71c