Did you know that something as simple as your posture can make you feel more energized? If you ever feel down, depressed, or just tired, think about what your posture is like. More than likely your posture is not that great. You’re probably sitting with your shoulders slumped, resting your face on your hands, and generally lacking energy with every part of your body.
If you want to feel better immediately, try to train yourself to have good posture. Sitting up or standing up tall helps you breathe better, gets more oxygen into your lungs, and improves your mood in amazing ways. It’s a lot like smiling. When you smile as you talk, it’s hard to be mad or depressed even if you started out that way.
Tips on Getting Your Posture Right
With your posture, if you’re standing tall, you can be sure that you’ll feel more energetic and more confident. It’s amazing, but when you do this you slow down the release of cortisol into your blood and increase the number of red blood cells that get to the various parts of your body – including your brain. This will automatically give you more energy.
Try to set up a way to remind yourself to check your posture. One way to do this is to set up an alarm on your computer if you’re at your desk all day as a reminder. Another way is to pick something that you often look at in the room to help remind you to check your posture.
Try putting down the mobile devices while you’re doing other things so that you look up instead of down. For example, when you go outside for a walk, don’t look at your phone the entire time. Walk, look around, and keep your head up high. Even if you’re exercising on your stationary bike, instead of looking at a book or your mobile device, look up, keeping your ribs open and your spine aligned, and you’ll notice you are much more energetic.
Even when you’re watching TV you can keep your posture positive by not multitasking and setting your television up in the right spot so that you can look at it comfortably straight ahead. Every little thing you can adjust to avoid slouching, avoid looking down, and avoid bending your neck down will help you get more energy into your day.
The main ingredient to more energy besides water is oxygen. To get more oxygen, you’ll want to learn more about deep breathing and why it’s so important for keeping you energized. We’ll look at that next time.