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How to improve your posture

Know what good posture is believed to be. Most people think that to "stand up straight" means tensing your back to heave your chest 'in and up', and pulling your head back in to your chest. Not so. The spine has two natural curves that you need to maintain called the 'double C' or 'S' curves, these are the curves found from the base of your head to your shoulders and the curve from the upper back to the base of the spine. When standing straight up, make sure that your weight is evenly distributed on your feet. You might feel like you are leaning forward, and look stupid, but you don't.
Using a mirror, align your ears, shoulder, and hips. Proper alignment places your ears loosely above your shoulders, above your hips. Again, these points make a straight line, but the spine itself curves in a slight 'S'. You'll find that this doesn't hurt at all. If you do experience pain, look at your sideview in a mirror to see if you're forcing your back into an unnatural position. If so, stop it!
Do exercises that strengthen the muscles across your upper back and shoulders. These do not have to be strenuous! Try the following, with or without handweights:
- Align your ears over your shoulders. Raise both arms straight up, alongside your ears. Remember to keep your ears aligned! Bend forearms toward shoulders to touch your shoulder blades. Do 10 repetitions with both arms, then alternate 10 reps for each arm singularly.
- Align ears with shoulders. Raise both arms out to sides at shoulder length. Hold for a slow count of ten. Slowly lower arms to sides, counting ten as you lower. Slowly raise arms back to shoulder height, counting to ten as you raise arms. Do ten reps, constantly checking your alignment! If ten reps are too many to start, do as many as you can. You should at least feel a slight fatigue in the shoulder muscles.
- Be a penguin. While you wait for a webpage to load, toast to pop, or the microwave to beep, place elbows at your side, and touch your shoulders with your hands. Keeping your hands on your shoulders, and your ears aligned, raise both elbows (count one, two) and lower them back to your waist (count one, two). Do as many reps as your wait allows. You'll be surprised how much exercise fits into 30 seconds.
Do stretches. This can greatly help if you find that you have a sore back or neck after a while.
- Tilt (stretch) your head in all four directions over your shoulders (forward, back, left, right), and gently massage your neck. Avoid rolling in a circle, as it may cause further strain.
- On your hands and knees, curl your back upwards, like a cat, and then the opposite. Think about being able to place a bowl in the hollow of your back.
Repeat the exercises a few times each day. Doing them in the morning helps your body stretch out the muscle lethargy of sleep, and periodically throughout the day helps raise your energy level without a heavy workout.

You can have someone tape a giant X on your back from one shoulder to the opposite hip. Then put a straight line of tape across your shoulders closing the top of the X. Wear this during the day, to help retrain your back. This works really well if you hold shoulders back before taping, use wide non stretch tape and ideally change tape each day

Don't tighten up your muscles when you are assuming a straight posture. It will only stress the joints and muscles themselves and this affects the skeleton, therefore your posture and even the way you move and breathe. Try to eventually relax into it but if you experience back pains, stop it! You are probably causing unnecessary muscle tension.

If your head is hanging, you can't be properly aligned. Keep your head at the level that allows you to look directly ahead without having to turn your eyes up. If you cannot do this without feeling tension in your neck, this means you are causing unnecessary muscle tension.

A great side benefit of keeping your head straight, and your ears/shoulders/hips aligned is an improvement in your self-esteem and attitude. If you walk with your head up, you appear more confident, and feel more confident, which improves your attitude and mood, making it easier to walk with your head up.

Try these steps to get in alignment: push your shoulders forward, then bring them straight up, then bring them straight back, then bring them staight down. Feel good? If your shoulders feel slightly stiff or tense you may have unnecessary muscle tension.

If you feel pain, especially back pain when trying to attain 'correct' posture you could consider learning the Alexander Technique with a qualified teacher , this is a proven learning technique which helps drop unneccessary muscle tension, regain natural posture and also adds a quality of ease to the way you move and work.