The Science of Posture Sitting up straight will make you happier more confident and less risk-averse

Ill confess up front: I have terrible posture. Its been bad since I was in high school at least, and probably for a lot longer than that. Its one of these things I keep in the back of my mind as something I know I should do, but never surf to, like eating more fresh vegetables and sending more postcards.
Its really interesting for more information regarding commonly-held assumptions for the Buffer blog, because I often find out surprising things. Researching how our posture affects us wasn’t any different. If youre like me and struggle to sit up straight when you know you should, you might like this post.
Weve talked extensively about body language before. But this time, we wanted to take a different flow. The way we stand, sit and walk, actually has more longer reaching implications on our mood and happiness than we thought. The latest studies reveal it:
Shaking your head will affect your opinion and other surprising new insights on posture
Body language is closely related to posturethe way we move our bodies affects how others see us and also our own moods and habits. Since most scientific research, 2 overlap quite tiny. This isnt too surprising, precisely our posture and the body language affect our thoughts is.
For instance, a survey at Ohio Expenses hikes in 2003 learned that our opinions could be subsconsciously influenced by our physical patterns. Here are two fascinating examples:
When participants in the study nodded in agreements or shook their heads to signal disagreement, these actions affected their opinions without them realizing.
The same study also showed that when participants hugged themselves, they were sometimes able to reduce their physical pain.
Dutch behavioral scientist Erik Peper has done extensive research into this area, as well. He regularly makes participants inside the classes stand up and stretch, for similar reasons why exercise has been linked to happiness, like here:
good posture, improve posture, stretching
Here are three fascinating things that happened once our posture changes:
For example, we all sit up straight, we are able to remember positive memories or think of something positive in general, according to this experiment.
Another insight was that if we skip during breaks, we can significantly increase our levels of energy. A slow, slumped walk on the other hand, can perform the exact opposite and drain us of one’s energy. (source)
The study also found that those that were most with depression before the study found their energy drained more than others.
So Erik Peper is convinced (and I am, too) that we ought to keep a careful eye on our posture and body languagelest it bring us down without us realizing.
Posture also changes our hormones: Standing tall literally allows you to more powerful
When we talk more broadly of body language, as a substitute for good posture, we can actually see the affects it has on relationships right around the animal kingdom. In particular, body language is used to convey power, through expansive postures (i.e. spreading out your limbs and opening the body) and large body size (or the simple thought of large body size).
You might know about Amy Cuddys famous Ted Talk and her incredible insights on how posture changes our ranges. Well, some even newer studies took this even further:
A study by researchers from Columbia and Harvard Universities demonstrated that body language symbolizing power can actually affect our decision-making, instinctively. The researchers measured hunger for chance of participants in a choice of expansive, powerful poses, or contricted poses (occupying minimal space, keeping limbs in order to the body). Those your market powerful poses not only felt much better and in control, but were 45% more preparing to take a risky think.
good posture, improve posture, posture
Plus, the study used saliva samples to prove that expansive postures actually altered the participants hormone levelsdecreasing cortisol (C) and increasing testosterone (T):
This neuroendocrine profile of High T and Low C has been consistently regarding such outcomes as disease resistance and leadership features.
So clearly, our posture has more to do with our minds we can result in thought. Plus in fact, excellent idea like our bodies come firstwhen we alter our posture and body language, it subconsciously influences our thinking and decision-making.