Frederick Alexander was an actor who became so interested about the effect of posture on the mind and body that he pioneered his own form of postural therapy and called it the Alexander technique. It is easy to prove for yourself, stand in front of a mirror nice and straight with your chest out, shoulders back and chin in. Now do the opposite and ask yourself how standing straight compares to slouching. Being upright looks healthier, more confident, distinguished and even more intelligent than assuming poor posture.
A bus driver I knew did a work related self defence course, during the course he was shown a series of CCTV recordings of muggings and bag snatchings in public places, at the end of the video presentation the course instructors turned the lights back on and asked everyone what all the victims had in common. This was not an easily answered question (infact no one got the answer right) because some of the victims were men, some were women, some older and some younger and no common denominator was immediately obvious.
The course instructor then told his instructees ” look at the posture of the victims”. Sure enough they watched the same CCTV footage again and it was true, the assailants did not seem to choose their victims just because they were small or old or female because prior to pouncing, there were people who safely walked past the muggers who were not that big and strong looking atall but they did have straight backs and a confident looking way of carrying themselves. The victims looked like victims before they became victims, and none fought back.
A good posture looks confident, when people prepare to be bullied they shrink and look like easy targets. Kids who get picked on at school try to take up as little space as possible so they don’t get noticed by the playground thugs.
Actors, singers, public speakers, politicians, anybody who performs infront of others consciously use posture and body language to communicate, the rest of us tend to unconsciously do it. A person’s poor posture might be the result of low self esteem, if your posture is poor you might need to remind yourself of your achievements and the things you do well, this may be what you need to stand straighter.
It is not just for health reasons that good posture is worth the effort, the muggers in the videos may consciously know nothing about body language atall but instinctively we all do. When people carry themselves well they are usually treated with more respect and deference (and appear fitter and more attractive) than they do when they have that tired and defeated look about them.
Replacing bad postural habits for good ones is not easy, it is always a work in progress and like doing other forms of exercise if you don’t use it you lose it, it is hard to see ourselves from the outside objectively so look at the posture of others and ask yourself “do I want to look like that?” and do something about it.