Commitment to daily exercise tip #2: Enhance your posture.
Why? Because good posture boosts your mood, energy and outlook. By elongating your spine and reconnecting with your core muscles you’ll instantly look like you’ve dropped a couple of kilos too.
Not sure how? Try these 5 tips:
1. Become aware of how you hold yourself and how it makes you feel. Make regular posture checks throughout your day. Even set yourself an alarm if that helps. Once an hour, observe your spine, check the length of your neck, observe your shoulders, and notice your eyes and jaw. Notice your posture in different positions, when sitting at the computer, driving, while standing, waiting in queues, and carrying things.
2. Once you are aware, cultivate better posture: lengthen your spine, elongate your neck, soften your eyes, eyebrows and jaw, relax your shoulders down away from your ears, broaden your collar bones and space across your shoulder blades, and feel a subtle drawing in from the pit of the abdomen. When you’re walking, lift your gaze rather than looking down at the ground. As much as you can, aim for symmetry in how you hold and use your body. Notice how this feels.
3. Use your breath to help cultivate better posture: Become aware of your breathing and notice as you soften and smooth out your breathing, it becomes easier to achieve better posture. Notice the effect that better posture and smooth breathing have on the quality of your mind, your mood and your energy levels.
4. Try this floor exercise: on all fours, try ‘cat’ and ‘dog tail’ yoga poses to simultaneously strengthen and stretch the front and back of your body. Inhaling: point your tailbone skywards, draw your shoulders away from your ears and arch your spine in a back-bending movement. Keep lengthening your neck and look just a little further forwards than your hands. Exhaling: round your spine by looking to your navel and tucking your tailbone under. Press down into your hands and shins while powerfully drawing your abdomen towards your spine. Repeat these movements lead by your breathing, 6 of each.
5. Try this standing exercise: stand tall with your feet hip width apart and your arms down by your sides, middle finger in line with the middle point of your outer thigh. Gaze straight ahead and feel the length of your spine and neck. Feel the grounding of your feet against the floor and the strength of your legs and core supporting you. Inhaling: raise your arms overhead, gazing up to your fingertips. Exhale, lower your arms back down to your sides and gaze forwards. Repeat 6 times, each movement lead by your breath. With each repetition feel your spine growing taller.
This is just a small selection of very simple ideas and exercises that will promote better posture. Get in touch if you’d like a bespoke plan created just for you. Changing your posture can genuinely change how you feel!
Love to all,
Suz xx
Suzy is available for counselling, coaching and private yoga sessions at her consulting room in Cammeray, Sydney, home visits, coaching via phone or skype, and ‘walk & talk’ sessions by appointment.
Contact Suzy at: suzy@suzyreading.co.uk
Follow Suzy at: www.facebook.com/SuzyReadingPsychologyAndYoga
If this article resonates with you please share with your friends and loved ones.