The Posture Myth

Your mom lied to you. 

And your chiropractor, physical therapist and personal trainer probably did too. 

There really is no such thing as “bad posture.”

Through decades of research that have been done on this topic - no correlation between poor sitting or standing posture and pain or disability has been identified. 

That’s right - slouching doesn’t make you a bad person and your spine isn’t going to explode if your ears aren’t lined up with your shoulders or if your elbows aren’t at perfect 90 degree angles.

Ok, now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about what might actually matter. 

• Time spent in a particular position: frequent breaks are a good idea.

• The ability to easily move, shift and vary your posture is probably a good thing too: if you’re grunting when you cross or uncross your legs, that might be a problem.

• It should be efficient: whether running a marathon or on a Zoom call, we want to minimize wasted energy.

• Factors like increased stress, poor sleep, and job dissatisfaction actually do have a correlation with increased pain according to research. So the next time you have pain not related to trauma or injury, try to shift your focus onto stress management, and improving sleep. 

• One caveat to the above…if you’re already experiencing back pain, the specific posture might matter a bit. So explore a bunch of different options and see what works best!

You now have permission to shift, fidget, slouch and otherwise move about your chair.