Posture: A Conscious, Multisensory Experience
Chiropractors have been preaching the importance of efficient posture for decades.Posture is not something the average person thinks about. Once we get the hang of it, we never question if those habits, usually learned in the first year of life, continue to efficiently serve a functioning adult to best advantage in later life. This same balancing act must eventually deal with a fully, mature structure.
Unfortunately, few persons are consciously aware of how they do what they do when they do it. For example, when standing and/or sitting, where is your weight centered? Can you accurately explain how you keep your upright balance? As you read these words, are you holding your breath or moving it? These are just a few basic questions examining the importance of how you do what you do when you do it.
For the past 16 years, this writer has been investigating how posture influences breathing habits and vocal sound. What emerged from this ongoing investigation is the hypothesis that postural habits have an all-inclusive interaction with everything we do from breathing to hormonal production (Lennon, Shealy). In support of that statement, let's examine some pertinent facts concerning human developmental anatomy not readily known to the general public.
All mammals are born with the tongue entirely in the oral cavity where it remains, with one exception, throughout adult life. This lingual/oral configuration during infancy facilitates breathing while nursing with the ability to simultaneously breathe while swallowing. Humans are the only mammals, however, who lose this innate response sometime between six months and six years of age.
At birth, the human larynx is situated in front of the first, second and third cervical vertebrae of the neck. Because of this, human infants are born obligate nose-breathers and are incapable of breathing through the mouth except when crying. As the human structure grows and matures, the tongue and larynx move down to a place at rest in front of the fourth, fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae, and one third of the tongue forms the anterior wall of the human throat where it remains throughout life.2
The average person thinks of the human larynx as a "voice-box." Its vibratory potential, however, is only a fringe benefit compared to its primary function as a sphincter mechanism controlling the flow of air in and out of the lungs.
The original purpose of this investigation was to find postures that allowed the body to breathe as innately intended, thereby enhancing vocal resonance. That intent was realized early on in the investigation. We were not prepared, however, for how extensively postural habits influenced all other human function.
Medical science concedes that most people do not adequately ventilate and oxygenate their living structure. No explanations are given for why we humans are so ineffective in the exchange of oxygen: the most vital component of our existence.
Oxygen is one of the most powerful healing forces known to living creatures. Without oxygen, nothing works! The bottom line is that we often fail to optimize its full potential; that is most unfortunate, especially when you consider that breathing is the only body rhythm over which we have conscious control.
We are all endowed with an innate wisdom that allows us to feel better, look better, and sound better. This wisdom is active during gestation while we grow and develop, when we are born, and remains actively responsive until the day we first try to stand up. In that moment, our body's innate efficiency to interact with gravity becomes compromised in attempting to find the right muscle tension to maintain an upright posture.
What is posture? There are several dictionary definitions, but the most inclusive is "an attitude, a state of mind." It's easy to spot someone with "an attitude." How can you tell? Their posture. Posture is how you individually organize the major components of your body (head, chest, and pelvis) to resist the downward pull of gravity.
If the center of gravity of any functioning structure moves off its axis in any direction, structural integrity is compromised. But the human body has three centers of gravity designed into the dynamics of a continually moving and thinking force, each with its own center of gravity. If these three gravity centers are not in synchronized alignment, the efficiency of all vital parts is in continual jeopardy.
As multisensory beings, we humans continually move in, off, and around our structural axis to maintain body balance. The average person is not consciously aware of how much superfluous effort is spent maintaining erect balance until the end of the day, when everything crashes down from exhaustion. That's why we have to readjust the rear view mirror in our car to a lower position in the evening from where it was that same morning. Have you ever questioned why you feel so physically and mentally spent at the end of the day? Such wasted energy is incalculable in an hourly and daily application, let alone for a lifetime.
Not everyone is guilty of this imbalance. Some keep their innate spinal suspension as they experiment with upright balance; the infants who invariably walk sooner than others, and the octogenarians with efficient posture and an energetic spring in their step that belies their actual age. Why? Because the body's inborn ability to optimally interact with gravity is seldom compromised, allowing optimal function with minimal effort.
Discomfort and pain invariably change posture. This not only influences how we feel, how we breathe, and how we look, but also the sound of our voice.
Anthropologists argue that the human creature was never intended to be bipedal. In answer to this statement, let's explore a speculative observation, together with a little-known fact about the human body. Had early humans not chosen to stand erect, it is doubtful that we would have developed our unique human capacity for vocal sound.
In the back of the human throat, there is a space that exists in no other living creature. Quite possibly, first standing erect shifted gravity's influence on the continually evolving human body, allowing this variable to develop as a gravity adaptation. The sound potential of this space is unique only to humans.2 Had we stayed on all fours, it is unlikely that this particular space would ever have evolved. This is not a proven fact, but it is a plausible hypothesis.
Is it possible that many of the average human body's aches and pains begin and continue, except for genetic predisposition, when we first learn to balance on two feet? By middle age, the superfluous energy spent holding our body erect would boggle the mind.
Maybe a little self-maintenance could prevent problems before they happen. Periodic maintenance of our car is a foregone conclusion if we wish to keep it working efficiently. Why not the same attentive responsibility to our individual body? Learning to consciously focus on how you do what you do when you do it is a beginning in assuming responsibility for your personal self-maintenance.
Modern medicine too often addresses only the effects of a problem with minimal regard for the cause. We already know the effects: discomfort, pain and disease. Now let's examine some of the possible causes.
The three most obvious causes of chaos in the human body are genetic predisposition; the immediate environment, and how your conscious mind reacts to such stimulations. Remember the observation about posture and attitude? Our thinking creates, molds, and shapes both our imagined and visible self-image. Our individual experiences define our personal perception of reality; another reason to think about how you do what you do when you do it.
For example, the average person stops breathing when engaged in a focused activity. Breath holding is one of the most self-destructive habits we humans have. Ask 20 people to thread a needle; chances are that all 20 will stop breathing while attempting to do so. We will discuss the ramifications of this universally self-defeating habit in part II of this series.
We began experimenting with postures that minimize the excessive exaggeration of the secondary spinal curves that do not appear until a child first becomes bipedal. With the help of videofluoroscopy we found that minimizing these curves allows the adult larynx a potential suspension as low as the first thoracic vertebra. This lower suspension not only appreciably alters vocal resonance, it also greatly enhances breathing efficiency. More than a decade of experiential participation and observation also revealed specific postures that minimize habitual gravity antagonism and maximize breathing efficiency.
The postures, together with enhanced breathing efficiency, had other benefits not anticipated. Voice not only changed for the better, but also many other stress-related dysfunctions: lower back pain; neck pain; migraine headaches; chronic depression; chronic fatigue syndrome; TMJ; dysphonia; and stroke disability. Why? Because the relaxing postures and improved breathing efficiency increases blood oxygen.
Using a pulse oximeter to monitor pulse and blood oxygen, we observed 100% oxygenation sustained for over 30 minutes when practicing these postures. The experience has been referred to as a runner's high, only more intense. By practicing this procedure, countless individuals have found that after three minutes, the central nervous system's dominant force is invariably the parasympathetic; the end result is unimaginable relaxation. There will be more about this in parts II and III of this series.
Your mind is conditioned only by your self-imposed limitations. If your present limitations remain locked up in your own personal paradigm, where is your innate capacity to grow and reach out beyond the confines of your personal experiences? Self-imposed limitations are the same as your own self-wrapped chains, restricting your personal freedom. Limitations of the mind become visible realities in the posture of the body.
Your body innately knows how to attend to its specific needs, but to allow your body to do what it already knows, you have to get your conscious mind's habitual participation out of the way. You have at your conscious, voluntary command three of the most powerful forces known to man: gravity, oxygen, and you!
Parts II and III of this series will discuss further the inner action between gravity, posture, and breathing, together with suggestions on how to help unify these innate forces to the continued benefit of your individual health and well-being.
References
- Lennon J, Shealy CN. Postural and respiratory modulation of autonomic function, pain, and health. American Journal of Pain Management, January 1994, 4(1).
- Crelin ES. The Human Vocal Tract. New York: Vantage Press, 1987.
John Lennon, BM, MM
Emporia, Kansas