Stressed, Sore, and sitting too straight? Why “Good Posture” might be making you worse

Things are a bit stressful out there right now. The price of butter is a piss take, mortgage rates aren’t coming off for a while and the pressure to stay employed is harder than it has been. Your body knows it.

When you’re stuck in fight-or-flight mode (sympathetic nervous system repsone), your nervous system flips into survival gear. And unfortunately, your poor postural muscles get inhibited in the process. This is due to cortisol, the stress hormone that’s shuts down the muscles that are supposed to keep you upright, relaxed, and pain-free.

So what do most of us do?

We sit up straighter, of course. We tense the core, brace like we’re about to get tackled, and try to “fix our posture” by working harder at it. Ironically this makes it worse. 

 “Great” Posture generally increases your pain

Sitting up stiff as a board actually increases your pain. You’re using your fast-twitch, sprint-style muscles — the ones made for bursts of movement like running or lifting — to try and hold you upright for hours. These guys are not made for that life.

What you really need are your slow-twitch, marathon muscles — they’re designed for endurance, for the gentle work of keeping you tall without feeling like you're at the gym all day. Your Pilates postural muscles. 

Annoyingly  when you're in pain, your body often switches those slow-twitch muscles off. So your stabilisers (the deep support crew) go missing in action. That wobbly knee? That nagging back pain? That tension headache from sitting at your desk like a statue? Yeah, that’s your body screaming: “Wrong muscles!”

So What Should You Actually Do?

Instead of gripping, bracing, and sitting like a robot trying to win the Posture Olympics...

Try this:

• Low back pain? Roll up a towel and pop it behind your lower back.
  

• Neck or mid-back pain? Lean into your headrest — that’s what it’s there for!
  

• Shoulder or elbow pain? Bring your keyboard or steering wheel closer. Make life easier for your limbs.

 Come See Us

At Connect Studio, we help you retrain your body the smart way — teaching you how to switch those “marathon muscles” back on, and calm down the sprinters who’ve taken over your posture.

We’ll help you breathe better, move easier, and stop your stress from becoming a full-body cramp.