In today’s day and age, appearances are everything. Whether this is right or not is up for debate, but that fact of the matter is people are willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars on plastic surgery so they can feel better about themselves. Actually the best way to look better is to improve your posture. You may be wondering, how can I improve my posture? We will discuss in more detail in today’s article.

Why Good Posture?

Great posture gives you the appearance of confidence, high self-esteem and being healthy. You look taller, more proportionate and lean when standing up straight. Besides looking good, as an added benefit of great posture you also function and feel better when you stand up straight.

Many studies have demonstrated that excessive thoracic kyphosis, or rounded shoulders, can decrease your overall lung capacity. When your mother used to remind you to stand tall she was on to something! Your posture affects so much more than just how we look.

3 Ways to Improve Posture

There are many ways you can help to improve your posture. First is to be aware of your body. Begin to notice when your shoulders are rounding forward or when you are feeling tension or tightness in your neck or lower back, as these are signs your posture is not good. Once you catch yourself in poor posture, fix it! It’s that easy!

Second, strengthen the muscles that are weak and stretch the muscles that are tight. Commonly we find that most people have tight muscles on the front of their bodies and weak muscles on the back. This is mostly due to spending WAY to much time sitting. So to reverse this trend we prescribe specific exercises to stretch your pecs, hip flexors and shoulders while strengthening all the muscles of the back.

Lastly, having your spine checked for subluxations and corrected will greatly improve your overall posture and health. Subluxations are areas in your spine that are misaligned creating tension and interfering with how the muscles and nerves in the area are working. With a good solid program of spinal adjustments, exercises and being conscious of your posture you can save thousands of dollars on plastic surgery and look just as good if not better!

Your mom was right after all, stand up straight!