Slouching Affects How You Breathe

In our modern techie world, you probably find yourself slouched over your phone or slumped over a laptop for hours at a time.  I expect that you are aware that staring at a screen for long periods of time, especially when you’re not sitting properly ie, poor body alignment can take its toll on your muscles, joints, and ligaments.  Feeling a little stiff, are you? But did you know that slouching affects how you breathe?

Try it right now.  Is it easy for you to breathe normally when you are slouched over?  Not so much right?

CRAZY FACT: Your ability to breathe deeply (vital lung capacity) drops by 30% when you are slouched over in a weak posture.

Whether you realize it or not you likely spend a significant portion of your day in that position and out of necessity, your body has adapted to breathing in that position. Just because your body can function this way doesn’t mean it’s very efficient at it.

Another way can we show that slouching affects how you breathe is by considering how breathing actually works.  With your body in this slouched position, your abdomen is compressed so your diaphragm can’t do its main task of breathing.   Other “back up” muscles in your neck and shoulder have to kick in and pick up the slack.

Additionally, when your diaphragm isn’t moving freely up and down with every breath it isn’t able to do one of its key other tasks: massaging your heart and abdominal organs.  That sounds important, doesn’t it?

 

Here are 4 more reasons to stop slouching and sit up tall

 

1) When you sit, your blood flow slows down significantly. 

Circulation to your legs is really slow which can cause the blood to pool in your legs, making it harder to be pumped back up to your heart. This can cause swelling, numbness, and even a spike in your blood pressure.

2) Sitting for long stretches over 90 minutes limits your ability to process fat.

And what can’t get used gets stored so this can cause extra weight gain around the midsection, hard to lose extra pounds, increase the risk of high cholesterol, and even diabetes.

 

3) When you slouch over your keyboard your shoulders and head roll forward into a “forward head position” otherwise known as the keyboard hunch.

After sitting like this for even a short time you may experience pain and tension in your neck commonly called tech neck. Too much tension in your chest and shoulders can limit blood and nerve flow into your arms which can cause numbness and pain in your hands, wrists, and arms. Yikes!

 

4) The way you hold your body influences your mind. 

Your body constantly sends signals back to your brain which impacts how you feel and think. A sleepy, slouched posture can leave you feeling sluggish, guarded, fearful, negative, anxious, worried, or even sad.

Sitting for long periods slouched over techie devices may contribute to the rising rates of depression and anxiety especially in younger people.

Now that you know how slouching affects how you breathe and feel and function its time to take action. Join my free online  ABC’s of Strong Posture Workshop on Friday, May 15th  to learn how to:

• activate sleepy core muscles for stronger posture
• get rid of nagging neck, shoulder and back pain
• de-stress for more creativity and productivity
• have consistent energy for higher productivity and greater impact