Why can’t anyone in modern civilization stand in correct posture?

The vast majority of people living in modern civilization do not stand (or do anything) with correct posture.  Further, the vast majority of people could not get into correct posture for even one second.  This should seem odd.  We also see that many (if not most) people in modern civilization will lean or sit down if they’re given the opportunity, and while sitting, they will not sit autonomously - they will lean back, or curl up, or slouch.  Is it not odd that mankind has seemed to have lost the ability to support themselves?  Are we not troubled at losing our ability to simply stand or even sit without external support?  While many posture experts will tell you perfect posture is impossible, every single healthy animal has perfect posture, and most toddlers and young children have perfect posture.  The only adult people you are likely to find in perfect posture are people living in cultures like those of pre-civilization.

Posture is not simply how you stand, it’s how you do everything.  While proper posture is most often associated with the idea of having a neutral spine, posture is much broader than just your spine, and encapsulates how you use your muscles in coordination while doing anything.  Every time you use any part of your body, how you perform that action is a function of your posture.  If you have poor posture, you may reach your arm out lazily, not using all of your arm muscles, or you may keep your arms and upper body stationary as you walk, not actively engaging the whole body.

It’s easy enough to understand why our modern civilization harms people’s posture because the modern assault on posture is ubiquitous.  Children are put in shoes at a young age, preventing the proper development of the foot muscles.  Children are put in chairs at a young age, well before they have the strength to sit in a chair, let alone the knowledge of how to sit properly in one.  Sitting at a 90 degree angle, as is imposed by most modern chairs, is not suited to the human body, and should not be done for extended periods by anyone of any age, and yet virtually all young children are forced to sit in chairs for hours on end at school.  Improperly weaning children too early and weaning them onto soft foods can cause children to “suck-swallow,” which is an improper way to swallow.  Without anyone to teach them better, this suck-swallow becomes their default swallow, which leads to improper posture of the mouth, chin, lips and face.  This causes a whole host of problems, most notably mouth breathing, which is itself associated with many chronic illnesses.  Add on highly stimulating activities such as using a cell phone, watching video content, and playing video games, which are all typically undertaken in contorted or bent over postures, and you have a recipe for universal destruction of people’s postures.

If one thinks poorly developed feet muscles or poor posture of the mouth are rather small things, it’s important to understand that the body works as one.  You can’t have a bad elbow, or bad knee, or a jaw problem - if any part of your body is out of position, the rest of the body must compensate to adjust to that malfunction.  This results in other parts of the body malfunctioning, as they move to incorrect positions to accommodate the other incorrectly positioned parts.  The feedback loop results in ever worsening posture.

But still, even if parts of the body are out of place, shouldn’t we, if we put great effort in, be able to get into correct posture?  It would surely feel odd, and it might take great mental awareness to keep from reverting to the old posture, but shouldn’t we be capable of achieving correct posture, even for a moment?

The mainstream conception of malfunctioning posture is that some muscles have become too strong and others have become to weak.  The suggestion to solve the problem is to work out and strengthen the weak muscles, and at the same time to stretch the overly-strong, tight muscles.  This makes sense to some degree, but doesn’t explain why getting into correct posture is so close to impossible.

When a child is forced to sit in a chair for an hour, and, as is likely in school, that chair is a set size and not personalized to the student, the child will be uncomfortable.  They may squirm in the chair, changing to a new position whenever the old one has become unbearable.  But at a certain point, especially if they’re asked to do something, like take a test, they will have to focus on that and their discomfort will move to the back of their mind.  Ultimately they will just sit in a position that is uncomfortable.  Their body will respond by dulling the pain and discomfort, since the pain signal is no longer working.  Eventually their body will dull feeling to the strained part of the body to the point that they can no longer really feel it.  This is a loss of body awareness.

At first this loss of body awareness may be isolated to one place - which will cause the over strengthening of some muscle and the under use and weakening of a corresponding muscle.  But since the body works as one, this loss of body awareness will spread as the body adjusts itself to adapt it’s new set-up.  If left unchecked, the loss of body awareness will spread over the entire body, leaving you covered in overly strong and overly weak muscles.  You will be lucky to have awareness of half of your body left.

A loss of body awareness doesn’t typically result in total numbness or the feeling of pins and needles, though it can sometimes.  The effect is more subtle.  F.M. Alexander, the creator of the posture-related Alexander Technique, describes an effect similar to this which he refers to as “faulty sensory perception.”  In Alexander’s successful work with patients ranging from pain to a stutter to infantile paralysis, he saw that many could not control their body because they were not properly aware of their body.  He could see that someone, for instance, would allow their head to fall back while undertaking a certain action.  He could tell the person that their head is falling back, and instruct them not to allow that, but, when it came time for the person to undertake the action, they would throw their head back anyway.  In other patients he found that they would exert excessive force to do anything.  This could be seen in how the person did any action - if they turned a door knob, they used far too much force in their wrist, if they picked something up, they would grab it with too much force in their hands and fingers.  He had at least one patient who pressed their feet with excessive force into the floor at all times.  The person had been totally unaware they were doing this, as it had become normal to them.

This use of excessive force is instigated by a lack of body awareness.  If you’re not capable of feeling your body, you are not aware of what you’re doing with it.  We may think we need to torque our wrists to say turn a doorknob, but obviously we don’t.  This can be easily demonstrated.  If we make conscious effort to turn a door knob as lightly as we possibly can, we will see a major difference.  Using force that we don’t have to is more than just wasteful and pointless - it’s the cause of much bodily pain, and it will damage your ability to do anything.  Say you’re playing a sport or instrument - if you’re exerting excessive force, you will lose your ability to be agile and articulate with your actions, and you will not be able to reach your peak (since you’re wasting much of your energy).  And, of course, using excessive force in one place also means that you must be underusing a corresponding muscle.

This concept even explains to some degree why modern people are so tired and often choose to lean or sit when given the option.  If you are exerting excess energy in your every action, that will add up quickly, and result in simple actions feeling quite energy-intensive.

The body can be very deceptive.  If you are able to find a muscle on your body that is too strong on one side and too weak on the other, you may find that if you attempt to tighten the weak muscle, that rather than engaging that weak muscle, you engage a neighboring muscle which is itself overly strong.  You may similarly find that if you attempt to relax your overly strong muscle, you will instead relax a neighboring overly weak muscle, leaving the desired muscle unchanged.  This confusion of where your body actually is is caused by a lack of body awareness.

This loss of body awareness is why modern man cannot stand in correct posture for even a second.  When asked to stand up in correct posture, most will likely push themselves up to feel straight, but in doing so will only engage the muscles they can feel.  Rather than moving closer to correct posture, in attempting to stand with a neutral spine, most people will just engage the muscles on their body that are already too strong.  Even if a person is told what they’re doing wrong, they typically can’t correct themselves, because they can’t feel large swathes of their body.  How can they properly engage their muscles in coordination if they can’t feel much of their body?  Until awareness is returned to the whole body, the body will be unable to orient itself in the correct way.

Most people in modern civilization give very little thought to their posture, and since their spine has been destroyed by modern civilization, they are on the weak side of battle they don’t even know they are in.  If they grew up in a society like that of pre-civilization, they would be born with good posture and would likely maintain it without thinking about it.  But we have been attacked and destroyed to the point that we can’t stand up properly, we can’t even sit in a chair without leaning back or slouching.  Modern man can’t stand in correct posture for even a single moment because we can’t feel much of our bodies - we have lost awareness of our bodies.