The advantages of checking your posture regularly.

In this week's RLY workshop with one of our clients, we demonstrated the importance of a good posture to stay healthy at work. What makes posture such a decisive factor for our well-being and performance in business beyond its undeniable advantage for our physical health? Aren't we after all operating from our brain when we work? The following points will help you understand that there is no such thing as your brain or your performance being isolated from a healthy posture.

Checking your posture strengthens your attention muscle.
Yes, we all are very busy with our brains while we work. Yet, if we encourage ourselves to bring our attention down from our head space from time to time, we can train our brain in a new way. We can call this our attention or observation muscle, or simply awareness. Similarly to meditation and mindfulness practices, when we check our posture regularly, we bring our attention back to ourselves, to our physical self in space and in the present time. In this way, we train our selective attention (see point 2.1 Attention), which in turn will help us focus better in our work.

A healthy posture means a strong body.
Why do we slouch on our seat? Because it is easy and does not require our muscles to be engaged as we let gravity and our comfy chair do the work for us. On the other hand, a strong posture, seating or standing, requires our legs, core and back muscles to be active. Here is an exercise to strengthen your muscles directly in the office.

Open and powerful postures boost the right hormones for success.
A study from Columbia University and Harvard University has shown that power poses in which participants hold their body in an open and relatively straight way (involving at least some muscular activity) revealed higher levels of testosterone and lower levels of cortisol. This hormonal cocktail is decisive to show assertiveness, higher self-confidence and to be able to sustain stressful situations better. It is also important to mention that this was valid for both men and women. (Link to the original study). So don’t wait: stand up and straight; feet strongly anchored; hands on the waist; stomach in; straight back; chest open and gaze up. Here you go with a powerful self and a good posture!

Is this you at your desk? Checking your posture regularly will bring you cognitive, psychological and physical benefits.


This is article #6 of our 100-blog-post series. To keep in touch, receive our tips, videos and insights, sign up for our Newsletter and follow us on Youtube & LinkedIn