Our search for improved posture endures as our modern lives demand us to lean in, bend towards myriad screens and hover over our phones. It’s enough to sit up and take note, as the desire to walk through life with head held high and a demeanour to match persists.
As a child, I took ballet classes that, before becoming a hobby, served to establish an understanding of the importance of good posture. My teacher encouraged this by telling me to visualise a pixie sitting on the ceiling pulling a ribbon from my crown.
I thought that nearly 15 years of ballet, often three times a week, would make for a lifetime of healthy posture, but a desk job put an end to that. Catching sight of my profile in the background of a fashion-week catwalk shot showed me quite how bad it had become. With the typical bleacher-style bench the preferred seating of most designers, your back is left to fend for itself. Mine had, quite literally, let me down.
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‘Good posture is something we admire in others and want for ourselves,’ says former osteopath and founder of Health Magic Chris Lambert-Gorwyn. ‘We associate it with leadership, confidence and physical attractiveness.’
Lambert-Gorwyn says most of his clients who want and arguably need help improving their posture (beyond the elderly) are women in their thirties and forties. Stress and the pressures of ‘balancing it all’, he says, are the primary reasons they come to see him. But he claims that the overtly masculine idea of posture, of almost inflating and growing in your stature, is outdated. We must let the politicians know that their ‘power pose’ is unsustainable and ‘inhibits function’, as your muscles tense unnaturally and you hold your breath in a way that allows you to do little else other than stand still.
Instead, good posture looks like feet grounded on the floor, pelvis tilted slightly forward and that same idea of being pulled through the crown for the lift my ballet teacher instilled in me. It’s more subtle and refined than anything Superman might attempt – I’ve noticed Kylie Jenner has it on lock of late.
Not only does good posture present better in society’s view, but it can make you feel better, too. ‘The quickest way to cure depression temporarily is to get people to adjust their posture and look up,’ Lambert-Gorwyn adds. ‘It’s only a temporary fix, but you cannot physically be depressed in that moment when you look up. It does the same as if you smile.’
As with most things at the centre of the Venn diagram of public perception and health and wellness, A-listers and the wealthiest 1% take it to the next level, and call in the help of a body-language coach, such as Sylvia Cohen.
‘When their posture is good, then their eye line is level, so they start to relate to their environment better,’ Cohen says, fresh from helping her latest client make an impression on the Cannes red carpet. ‘Life kicks good posture out of us. It’s environmental and emotional, and speaks to an individual’s levels of resilience.
Her focus when working with these clients, who she naturally remains mum about naming, is fixing the body’s position to enable full use of the breath to help them relax for moments in the spotlight. ‘If you take care of the posture, you release tension to get access to your full breath. Then you can start to do things under pressure, which is what my clients need. Standing on stage in front of thousands of people or walking the red carpet can be a very highly pressurised situation.’
You might not have a film premiere marked for next week’s diary, but the same high-stakes situations apply to all of us, from weddings to work presentations. We could all benefit from sitting up a little straighter and realising that the positioning of each of our vertebrae, our shoulder blades, our head and neck is affecting the way our bodies function more holistically.
The idea of ‘fake it until you make it’ can be applied as much to good posture as to confidence', Cohen adds. But she says in her practice it’s about using posture to go deeper. ‘You don’t ever really have to fake it, because you’ve already got it. It’s a question of uncovering it and re-engaging, and that’s all to do with posture.’
Jules Von Hep, founder of cult fake-tan brand Isle of Paradise, has recently written a book called The Confidence Ritual. For him, correct posture is an essential element of moving through life with body positivity. ‘When you turn routine into ritual, each thing has a purpose and an intention, and each action that you do has a knock-on effect,’ he says of making the active decision to engage in ‘better’ posture.
‘From my own experience, I know that when I was in a deep-rooted hate of my body and lacked confidence in myself. I was stooping; I was really trying to hide. It was as though I was ashamed to be seen.’
He sees it working the other way around, too. ‘Posture and confidence also come together so that if you do love your body, you’re going to value it and you are going to work harder at exercises that will help.’
It’s exercise classes that have retrained my posture. Reformer Pilates at and weight training at Frame in Shoreditch have helped strengthen my core, so my body feels more supported, whether I’m sitting at my desk or at a restaurant table. And because I do care, it does look better in photos, whether I’m the subject or in the background.
The best and most surprising thing about repairing my posture, though, has been how much more present I feel in my immediate surroundings. I can’t really have great posture and type into my iPhone on the sly – I’d have to raise it to eye level. I am more engaged and aware, and probably a better conversationalist for it. ‘Posture really does affect how we relate to our surroundings energetically,’ agrees Cohen. And do you know what? I would recommend the view from up here.
This article originally appeared in the September issue of ELLE UK.
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