How to improve your posture

Summary

Life Kit Podcast Summary: How to Improve Your Posture Hosted by Marielle Segarra | Released January 21, 2025 | NPR

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Introduction In the episode titled "How to Improve Your Posture," NPR's Life Kit host Marielle Segarra delves into the intricacies of posture, its impact on our daily lives, and practical strategies to enhance it. Joined by experts Leda Malik, a physical therapist and author of Science of Stretch, and Katie Bowman, a biomechanist and author of Rethink Your Position, the discussion offers a comprehensive guide to understanding and improving posture for better health and well-being.

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Understanding Posture Marielle Segarra opens the conversation by referencing a popular meme of a shrimp in a desk chair, highlighting the unnatural and often painful positions many adopt while working. She sets the stage for the discussion by questioning the conventional notions of good posture.

Defining Good and Bad Posture Leda Malik clarifies that good posture isn't merely about maintaining a straight back or appearing graceful. She states, “Good posture isn't about how you look. It's not about being graceful or ladylike. It's about how your body feels” (05:33). Katie Bowman adds, “A good posture is one that is dynamic, one that is not susceptible to pain as often as possible, and one that is best fit for what you need to get done” (05:40). Together, they emphasize that posture should be adaptive and tailored to individual needs rather than adhering to a one-size-fits-all standard.

The Science Behind Posture Katie Bowman explains her role as a biomechanist, focusing on how physical forces affect the body. She highlights the common experience of feeling stiff after prolonged periods of inactivity, such as during long transits: “You may have felt this effect after a long time in transit when everything in your body feels stiff” (02:03). Leda Malik underscores that holding a static, "shrimp-like" position briefly isn't detrimental, but maintaining it for extended periods leads to discomfort and injury.

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Identifying Postural Habits The experts discuss the importance of recognizing repetitive body shapes and their long-term effects. Leda Malik introduces an exercise to map out "body constellations," helping individuals identify which parts of their body are overworked or neglected:

“Imagine a star placed at every one of your joints... what constellation am I making the bulk of the day?” (06:33)

Katie Bowman elaborates on how asymmetrical habits, such as carrying a heavy tote bag on one shoulder, can lead to imbalances and pain:

“And those shapes are leaving their mark... we're kind of stuck in these same repetitive shapes” (09:39)

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Practical Strategies to Improve Posture

1. Movement Breaks

   • Incorporate Regular Movement: Leda Malik advises integrating movement into daily routines to disrupt stagnant positions. For desk workers, she suggests activities like stretching or doing lunges during breaks:

     “Put your body in as many different shapes as possible in that one minute break” (11:05)

   • Flexible Exercises: For those with mobility restrictions, seated stretches such as the cat-cow stretch or cross-body arm stretches are recommended.

2. The Wall Test

   • Objective Alignment Check: Katie Bowman introduces the wall test to assess spinal alignment:

     “Bring your middle back against the wall and then try to bring your head back there at the same time” (08:36)

   • Assessing Symmetry: This exercise helps identify areas of stiffness and the need for targeted stretches.

3. Environmental Adjustments

   • Ergonomic Setup: Optimizing workspaces is crucial. Adjusting monitor height, keyboard placement, and chair support can alleviate strain:

     “The top of that screen is at or about eye level with you” (13:51)

   • Sleeping Posture: Modifying pillow arrangements can prevent pressure points and maintain spinal alignment during sleep.

4. Embracing Natural Movement

   • Fidgeting Positively: Leda Malik and Katie Bowman advocate for embracing natural fidgeting as a means to distribute body load and meet movement needs:

     “Let the people fidget. It is a way of distributing load” (17:11)

   • Body Language Awareness: Recognizing and responding to bodily cues for movement can prevent discomfort and promote overall health.

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Overcoming Social and Workplace Barriers Leda Malik shares personal experiences of resistance to movement breaks in professional settings:

“It's like they're expecting their employees to be robots who could sit at a desk without moving” (15:18)

Katie Bowman reinforces the importance of integrating movement into daily routines despite societal norms that favor constant sitting.

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Takeaways

1. Map Your Body Constellations

   • Identify the common positions your body adopts throughout the day to pinpoint areas of strain or neglect.

2. Incorporate Movement Cues

   • Create environmental reminders to move, such as stretching when crossing off tasks or leaving a room.

3. Adjust Your Environment

   • Optimize your workspace and sleeping arrangements to support healthy posture and reduce pain.

4. Embrace Fidgeting

   • Recognize fidgeting as a natural and necessary form of movement to maintain bodily health.

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Conclusion The episode concludes with a recap of the four key takeaways, encouraging listeners to implement the discussed strategies to improve their posture. Leda Malik and Katie Bowman emphasize that fostering dynamic and adaptable postural habits can lead to significant improvements in comfort and overall health.

Marielle Segarra invites listeners to explore more Life Kit episodes, including topics like preventing chronic pain and healing from injuries, available on npr.org/LifeKit.

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Notable Quotes

• Leda Malik: “Good posture isn't about how you look. It's not about being graceful or ladylike. It's about how your body feels.” (05:33)
• Katie Bowman: “A good posture is one that is dynamic, one that is not susceptible to pain as often as possible, and one that is best fit for what you need to get done.” (05:40)
• Katie Bowman: “We've got so many parts and I don't think we're really fluent in all the options that we have for positions.” (02:43)
• Leda Malik: “Embrace the fidget. That's our fourth and final takeaway.” (17:07)

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Production Credits This episode of Life Kit was produced by Margaret Serino, with visuals by Beck Harlan, digital editing by Malika Grebe, Meghan Cain as supervising editor, and Beth Donovan as executive producer. The production team includes Andy Taegle, Claire Marie Schneider, and Sylvie Douglas, with engineering support from Robert Rodriguez.

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For more information and to listen to the episode, visit npr.org/LifeKit.

Transcript

[Marielle Segarra]

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[Leda Malik]

You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. Hey everybody, it's Marielle. Have you ever seen that meme of a shrimp in a desk chair? Normally I try not to explain memes or jokes, but this one's pretty straightforward. You know how shrimpies get curled up into sort of a hook shape? Imagine that. But sitting in a desk chair trying to fill out an Excel spreadsheet, a lot of us sit like this, or in equally tortured positions. And that's bad, right?

[Katie Bowman]

I always laugh as a physical therapist because people send it to me all the time. But the reality is it's not so much the posture in itself, but the time and the amount of movement that we actually get throughout the day to interrupt those stagnant positions.

[Leda Malik]

That's Leda Malik. She's a physical therapist and author of the book Science of Stretch, and she says if you hold your body in a shrimp like shape for a short amount of time, probably not a huge deal. If you do it all day, every day, that's when you start hurting. Katie Bowman is a biomechanist, which means she studies the effects that physical forces have on the body. She says you may have felt this effect after a long time in transit when everything in your body feels stiff.

[Unknown Speaker]

Usually if on a plane or a car, you don't get to have any movement breaks whatsoever. You're really, really stuck in a position.

[Leda Malik]

So what do you do in those moments you shake out your muscles, stretch, and move your body into other positions? Katie, who wrote a book called Rethink your Position, says doing that throughout your life is what leads to good posture.

[Unknown Speaker]

We've got so many parts and I don't think we're really fluent in all the options that we have for positions. Despite the number of joints and hinges and levers that really allow us to assume many different shapes, we're kind of stuck in the same set of shapes.

[Leda Malik]

On this episode of Life Kit. How to improve your posture we'll talk about what posture is exactly, how to know if yours is serving your body, and what you can do throughout the day to mix up the shapes your body is making.

[Marielle Segarra]

Support for NPR and the following message come from Betterment, the automated investing and savings app. CEO Sarah Levy shares how Betterment utilizes tech tools powered by human advice.

[Unknown Speaker]

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[Leda Malik]

Donald Trump is starting his second term as president. What will his administration do and what.

[Katie Bowman]

Policies will it promote?

[Leda Malik]

On the NPR Politics podcast, we'll break down what the new administration does and explain why it matters. Listen to the NPR Politics podcast every day. I used to think good posture was determined by whether you could glide across a room with a book on your head. Lita Malik, the physical therapist, says it's not that, and it's not as simple as saying sit up straight.

[Katie Bowman]

In reality, that posture may not be right for everyone and every single body. So really, the best posture is one that's fit for the things that you need to be doing and one that is adaptive and dynamic and one that you can change in and out of.

[Leda Malik]

Good posture isn't about how you look. It's not about being graceful or ladylike. It's about how your body feels.

[Katie Bowman]

So a good posture is one that is dynamic, one that is not susceptible to pain as often as possible, and one that is Best fit for what you need to get done.

[Leda Malik]

And bad posture is a set of patterns that cause you pain or make you prone to injury over time. The way you hunch over when you're washing the dishes, or bend down to do your laundry, or strain your neck reading in bed at night. Takeaway 1. The first step in fixing your posture and eliminating posture induced pain is to drill down into your habits. What shapes are you making all the time and what do you never do? Take a moment right now and check in with your body. Does anything hurt or ache? Have you noticed the pain before? Any idea when it started or what triggers it? Here's an exercise that can help you go a little deeper on that.

[Unknown Speaker]

Imagine a star placed at every one of your joints on your wrist, your elbow, your shoulders, one on your head and one on each vertebrae of the spine and your hips and your knees. And then ask yourself, what constellation am I making the bulk of the day? And you start to recognize that there's probably some repetition around the way that particular area that's alerting you or flaring up for you is positioned.

[Leda Malik]

Maybe you feel tightness in your shoulder blade. If you feel that most when you wake up, the problem could be your sleeping postures.

[Unknown Speaker]

You might notice, like, oh, that shoulder that, yes, gets sort of folded underneath me when I'm sleeping, that it makes this particular arm constellation at night. I notice that's really similar to the same arm constellation that I'm making at work. And that arm constellation is also showing up when I'm driving. And you start to see yourself as a collection of shapes, you might also.

[Leda Malik]

Realize, huh, I've been carrying a heavy tote bag on that shoulder. That's probably not helping. Looking at the constellations your body makes throughout the day will reveal your habits.

[Unknown Speaker]

And we have a lot of asymmetrical habits. And so over time, you feel the effects of not having movement really distributed throughout the body.

[Leda Malik]

Your body adapts to you repeatedly making these shapes.

[Unknown Speaker]

Now, your bone mass is slightly adapted to the way you load your leg bones, you know, throughout the day. And you've got just a little bit more tension in the parts that have to shorten, you know, to accommodate the fact that you slouch in one particular direction and they get more etched into the body. And then over time, that becomes our physical experience.

[Leda Malik]

Katie has another tip to help you check on your body's alignment and what shapes you're repeatedly making. It's called the wall test. You can use this one. If you're able to stand, put a.

[Unknown Speaker]

Wall behind you and let your hips sit against the wall.

[Leda Malik]

Your heels don't need to touch the wall. They can be a few inches out to give your butt some space.

[Unknown Speaker]

Bring your middle back against the wall and then try to bring your head back there at the same time. And what many people will find is their upper back has become so stiff, that constellation of the upper back is really curved forward. And that shape has become more etched in than. They realize that the only way they can get their head back against the wall or their shoulders back against the wall is by really arching their lower back. And so the wall is just a really great tool to help you get an objective measure for how your body parts are able to articulate.

[Leda Malik]

I did this in the studio during our interview and Katie also had me reach my arms out to the side against the wall.

[Unknown Speaker]

And your arm, can your wrists touch while all those other pieces stay on the wall?

[Leda Malik]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

And then you can go overhead. Do my hands go above my head? Can my wrists stay. Touch the wall there without making. That's not.

[Leda Malik]

That needs some work.

[Unknown Speaker]

Do we find one? Do we find a spot?

[Leda Malik]

Yeah, there's not. Well, one of them can, but the other one can't. Quite right.

[Unknown Speaker]

And that's a big part of that asymmetry too. You know, there's just injuries, there's hobbies or habits that we all have that will etch in these just different ways of using our body. But without checking in with your ranges of motion and the way things are stacking and able to articulate relative to each other, you just miss out that things are declining. You start to go, wow, I don't know when my hips got so tight. I don't know when I stopped being able to get my arms overhead. And then it becomes. I didn't know when I lost the ability to get up and down off the floor. And a lot of that is being set now just in. In the fact that we're not utilizing a large number of shapes. We're kind of stuck in these same repetitive shapes. And those shapes are leaving. They're leaving their mark.

[Leda Malik]

This isn't to say that we always need to move perfectly, evenly or symmetrically, but we want to start giving our bodies more options. Takeaway 2 Create moments of posture Counter programming. Let's say you're a desk worker and you spend most of the day sitting in the same position, just stepping away.

[Katie Bowman]

And doing a three minute workout, walking, doing lunges up and down your room or whatever it might be.

[Leda Malik]

That could help a lot. Now if you have mobility restrictions or you can't do standing exercises. Leda recommends a seated cat cow stretch, a seated hamstring stretch, a cross body arm stretch, or some rotations in your chair. Basically, you want to put your body in as many different shapes as possible in that one minute break.

[Unknown Speaker]

Here's Katie Just shake up your hands, reach them over the head, you know, bend to the right, bend to the left.

[Leda Malik]

Now, if you work on your feet in retail or at a warehouse, for instance, your posture breaks are going to look different.

[Katie Bowman]

Typical movement breaks for that person might include actually sitting down for a bit. Again, stretching the hip rotators, the hip flexors, standing up, stretching the calves, maybe even doing some calf raises.

[Leda Malik]

Lena recommends stretching your back, too, especially if you're lifting heavy trays or boxes. And Katie says you can create natural cues so these movement breaks become second nature, like changing positions every time you cross something off your to do list, or touching the top of the door frame each time you leave a room.

[Unknown Speaker]

Create these little environmental cues that just remind me that these parts need movement. Then my shoulder position when I go back to sitting at a desk and, you know, writing a book or working on a piece doesn't really bother me because I've moved. Nourish my shoulder and all these other positions just for minutes here or there, sprinkled throughout the day.

[Leda Malik]

Here's another fun idea. Try a game of solo charades. You're going to contort your body to look like an animal or a fruit or a vegetable or a letter of the Alphabet. I find bananas are a good starting point. Elephant works well for me, too. And giraffe is good if you really want to stretch your neck.

[Unknown Speaker]

The whole point is you're just trying to not do what you've just done for the hour leading up to that, or the three hours or the six hours or the 16 years.

[Leda Malik]

But movement breaks are only part of the equation. Takeaway 3 Adjust your environment. If you're constantly feeling pain in a part of your body, these body resets do help. But it's possible something's just wonky with your work setup or your sleep setup. That pain could vanish with some small tweaks. Think about the body constellations you made earlier.

[Unknown Speaker]

If you figured out that your arm is being pinned in a certain way when you're sleeping, then you might want to place pillows in a way that make it so that you're not pressing on certain areas.

[Leda Malik]

Or consider how you're sitting in your chair at the office. Do you slump back a lot? Or perch at the top of it put more weight on one leg or the other. Do you have to crane your neck up to look at your monitor or. Or reach your arms out really far to type on your keyboard? Leda says when it comes to your.

[Katie Bowman]

Desk setup, everything that you need to reach repetitively should be comfortable.

[Leda Malik]

Make sure that whatever it is you're looking at most, maybe that's your monitor.

[Katie Bowman]

That the top of that screen is at or about eye level with you, give or take a few degrees. Another aspect is bringing it close enough to you so you don't have to peer forward.

[Leda Malik]

Next, let's adjust your keyboard.

[Katie Bowman]

Keeping the keyboard at. We suggest around 90 degrees at the elbows with some support for your wrists so that you're not reaching too far and your wrist isn't flexed too far up, because that's a sustained posture that might aggravate, for example, the carpal tunnel.

[Leda Malik]

Now let's do your desk chair. Do you feel comfortable and supported in the one you have? Are your feet swinging off the ground or resting firmly on the floor?

[Katie Bowman]

You want something that allows your thigh to sit in the depth of the chair comfortably. Uh, the seat cushion should be about a couple inches behind your knee. So if your leg is going off of the seat, you should have a couple inches before you feel your knee, feet flat on the ground, some support for your elbows and your shoulders.

[Leda Malik]

If your pain doesn't go away with these kinds of tweaks, or if it's getting worse, there is professional help out there.

[Unknown Speaker]

If you have an area that's become very acutely injured and you're noticing other symptoms, you know, know, radiating pain and things that feel nervy or just the activities of daily living are being hindered because you can't walk on a particular joint. Like, then you want to go check in and have an evaluation.

[Leda Malik]

You can go see a primary care doctor or an orthopedist and also look for a physical therapist in your area. As I was talking to Katie about taking movement breaks throughout the day and getting up to stretch my body, I thought back on all the times in my life when that behavior was frowned upon. At my first job working for a financial magazine, one of the executives complained to HR that I was getting up from my desk too much to go to the bathroom or the kitchen to chat with a colleague. It's like they expected their employees to be robots who could sit at a desk without moving, typing away for eight hours straight.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, it's acting. You know, you're basically acting. You're like, I will act like a person who doesn't need to move.

[Leda Malik]

I told Katie that has never felt right in my body. I guess I would describe myself as having sort of a restless energy. My body and I need to like, get up and move and stand and stretch and do all these things. Or else, I don't know, I'll just start to fall asleep or I'll feel really, really like, pent up. And socially, that wasn't really accepted for a long time.

[Unknown Speaker]

I think a lot of that starts in school. There's a big assumption that if people are moving and taking care of their body's physical needs, that they can't possibly address their educational or, you know, mental productivity. But I think that there's a lot more evidence just to the contrary of that, that if you are someone who needs to move, that moving can really help regulate yourself. It's really just the ability to fidget. Embracing your fidget, especially if it helps you stay more focused in what you're doing.

[Leda Malik]

Embrace the fidget. That's our fourth and final takeaway. So much of life trains us to be sedentary, to unlearn all of the ways we moved our bodies as kids. Let's push back on that.

[Unknown Speaker]

Let the people fidget. It is a way of distributing load and it's a very easy way to meet more of the body's needs to move.

[Leda Malik]

Katie says if you're feeling self conscious about leaving your desk to do some squats or make the shape of a banana, remember, you know, you can only.

[Unknown Speaker]

Focus and think really as much as you can based on how. How your body's biological needs are met and, and movement is a tremendous biological need.

[Leda Malik]

Also think about all the ways your body is trying to shake itself out. Do you bounce your knee all the time? Drum your fingers? She says those little movement quirks we have are impulses worth listening to.

[Unknown Speaker]

I would teach that those fidgeting signals are more like hunger signals. We really need a language for. Oh, my body's telling me it needs to change shapes right now and do a little bit of movement.

[Leda Malik]

Okay. Katie has one final tip for you to check on the alignment of your hips and lower back. This is a problem area for a lot of folks, she says. A lot of us have this habitual standing pattern posture where we push our pelvis and hips forward so that your.

[Unknown Speaker]

Pelvis is placing more weight on the front of your foot over your toes than it is the heels.

[Leda Malik]

To see if you're doing this, take off your shoes, stand up and see if you can lift your toes. If that feels impossible, back your hips.

[Unknown Speaker]

Up so that the pelvis is stacked more over the heel and less over the middle or the front of the foot so that you can lift your toes all the way up. And that simple adjustment, it changes the way your lower back is articulating.

[Leda Malik]

If this feels really good, remember that posture the next time you're, for instance, washing dishes. If you notice your hips are resting against the counter, pull them back.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's like an instant lower body makeover just by backing the hips up.

[Leda Malik]

Do you think that this is what Juvenile was talking about when he said back that ass up?

[Unknown Speaker]

I'm almost certain that's what he was talking about.

[Leda Malik]

He cares about your posture. He cares about the load on your lower back.

[Unknown Speaker]

Who doesn't? I mean, that's a community service song, ultimately.

[Leda Malik]

All right, it's time for a recap. Takeaway 1. You can map out your most common body constellations to determine which parts of your body are overworked or neglected. That can help you find the root of the pain you might be experiencing. Takeaway to start to fill in those gaps with little movement cues, do some squats or lunges or overhead reaches whenever you check an item off your daily list. If you're on your feet a lot throughout the day, find some time to sit and rotate your back muscles. This can also be less formal. Touch the top of the doorway every time you leave the room. Make animal poses or shape your body like letters or numbers. Takeaway 3 Adjust your most common environments for maximum comfort. Get that desk chair and monitor just right. Or use that body pillow while you're sleeping and takeaway 4 embrace the fidget. When you're feeling antsy, your body is trying to tell you something. It's probably saying, hey, I could really use a stretch break right now. Or this sitting position is uncomfortable, so listen and move accordingly, no matter what other people say. For more Life Kit, check out our other episodes. We've got one on the best stretches for preventing chronic pain and another on how to heal from an injury. You can find [e-mail] LifeKit and if you love Life Kit and want even more, subscribe to our [e-mail] LifeKitnewsletter Also, we love hearing from you, so if you have episode ideas or feedback you want to share, email [e-mail] this episode of Life Kit was produced by Margaret Serino. Our visuals editor is Beck Harlan, and our digital editor is Malika Grebe. Meghan Cain is our supervising editor and Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Andy Taegle, Claire Marie Schneider, and Sylvie Douglas. Engineering support comes from Robert Rodriguez. I'm Marielle Segarra. Thanks for listening.

[Marielle Segarra]

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[Unknown Speaker]

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