Change your posture, change your world.

There are so many lessons to absorb in yoga teacher school! So many of the things I thought I already knew are being revisited and presented to me in new ways. I love learning the intricacies of yoga, and already – after only two weeks of classes – I’ve had some ah-ha! moments.

I learned something in yoga teacher school on Thursday night that sunk in and made perfect sense to me, and it has to do with posture and how we carry our bodies throughout our days.

Did you know that our posture can not only affect our mood, but it can literally affect our hormone levels? It seemed logical to believe the concept of shifting our mood by sitting up straight – shaking off those woe-is-me slumped shoulders and holding our head high, but actually changing our hormone levels?

Get this – our brain instinctively knows when our shoulders are slumped and our head is hanging low that there’s something going on. Just as our body language would appear to others looking on, our brain knows that the body's posture is a sign of unhappiness – maybe even fear or angst. And because our brain is so smart and great at delivering everything we need to get through our current situation, it goes ahead and makes some extra hormones to maintain us through that danger zone – whether we really need it or not.

But what if we hold ourselves in a poor posture and there's really nothing wrong? What if it’s just another regular ol’ day on planet earth and that’s how we sit or stand comfortably out of habit? Well, our brain doesn’t know that, so it just keeps producing the junk it needs to help maintain us, all slouched over like we have the weight of the world on our shoulders. I can see how this would be a vicious cycle without the knowledge of how to change it.

Change your posture, change your world.

The good news is that we can change that – all by ourselves and it won’t cost us a dime. The simple act of standing tall, head held up with shoulders back and down can be transformational. Our brain will get the message and be like, “Hey! This is a happy day and together we’ve got this!” and then it will magically produce all the right hormones to make that shift.

This could explain how yoga transformed me without me even knowing what was happening. This could explain how yoga helped me to overcome personal obstacles, and how it continues to feed my spirit. Thanks to my yoga practice, I stand tall with my shoulders back and down, facing the world head on and ready for whatever comes my way.

I am my posture, and my posture is me.
♥