Posture and Pain

Nearly every person I work with who has neck pain believes that their posture is at least partially to blame. Let me shed a bit of light on this issue. Posture is important, but not the way you think. Research shows us that postural awareness, ie, just being aware of your position, your effort, your ease, seems to be correlated with less pain. But fixating on the perfect posture seems to be correlated with MORE pain! If correcting posture predictably reduced pain then it would be easy to get out of pain, but it doesn’t, does it? 

The neck pain clients I have squirm and correct and fixate on their posture. They are trying to find that elusive position that both reduces pain and stiffness and meets the current cultural paradigm of “good” posture. The fact is, pain is so much more complicated than tissues. So mabye the issue is not that you aren’t standing right, it’s that you are hyper fixated on the “right” way, instead of finding ease, peace and connection in any position.

This practice is about functional movement. Comfortable, easeful standing posture transformed into an evolutionarily endorsed walking strategy. As you will learn in your mindfulness exercise this week, it’s important to start feeling our bodies rather than thinking about them. The arbitrary aesthetic of perfect posture in not what is best for everyone. I hope to empower you to find comfort in any position. As they say, “The best posture is the next posture”.