How to look good from the inside out

Tessa Haanstra, owner of Chiropractie De Pijp in Amsterdam, explains how good posture will make you look and feel great.

How much money do you spend on looking good? And what do you spend it on? Probably on things like new clothes and shoes, and perhaps also on makeup, beauty treatments, nails or false eyelashes.

These are all solutions that only work on the outside. Maybe you even work on your looks from the inside out, by eating well or exercising regularly. But aren’t you forgetting something? If you believe in an inside-out approach to looking good, you might want to check your posture.

Bad posture can ruin your appearance

Your posture is a key factor in your appearance. When you meet someone for the first time, for example, at a job interview or on a first date, what’s the first thing you notice about that person? Chances are it’s their overall appearance - the way they carry themselves.

Who is the first person that comes to mind when you think about bad posture? How would you describe that person’s appearance? Confident? Powerful? Happy? Probably not, right?

Spinal alignment determines posture

Your posture is determined by your spinal alignment. Your muscles help to keep you upright to a certain extent, but if you sit behind your computer all day chances are that your muscles will start to fatigue after a while.

When this happens, you’re left with your "natural" posture, which is your spine holding you up. This should still be a very upright posture if your spinal alignment is good. If you find yourself slouching it means that you have problems with your spinal alignment that need correcting.

From an S to a C

A healthy spine has three S-like curves; an inward curve at the neck, an outward curve at the upper back and again an inward curve at the lower back. However, due to technology and sitting too much, more and more people lose their natural curves and slouch towards a big C-shaped curve. Not only is this not very attractive, it can also lower your self-esteem, impact your emotions, make you feel more tired and decrease your productivity at work.

Good posture will boost your confidence

Standing up straight with a good posture can drastically improve your appearance. It can actually make you look thinner and taller, and research has found that a good posture also increases your confidence. It makes you happier, less stressed, and more assertive. Tall and open postures not only make you feel confident and powerful, they also make other people perceive you that way.

More benefits

So, having a good posture can make you look and feel better. But there are even more benefits! Perhaps one of the most important benefits of good posture is that it improves overall body function through its close relationship with the nervous system. Common results of bad posture are neck pain, back pain, and headaches.

When the head and shoulders of a body are rolled forwards, they collapse the rib cage and can push down on internal organs. If left uncorrected a bad posture can lead to problems like spinal degeneration, decreased respiratory capacity, digestive issues, decreased balance and more.

Sometimes your body needs a little help

Your body has a great ability to heal itself. If you cut your finger, for example, it heals without you having to think about it. But if your body could fix everything by itself, no one would ever get sick or injured, and there would be no need for doctors or specialists. At my practice, I use a unique chiropractic method that detects only the misalignments in the spine that your body cannot self-correct. This way your body can then correct the rest.

This method is very different from traditional chiropractic approaches. It’s important to understand that your body works as a whole, not as individual parts. It’s impossible to change one area of the body without affecting another. Once the misalignments your body cannot fix by itself are successfully corrected, your body can release the compensation layers it has created. As a result, your posture starts to improve.

Examples of good and bad posture

Ultimately, how you present yourself is your choice. Below are some pre- and post-treatment pictures taken in my practice:

These people didn’t just happen to be looking at the floor before their treatments, and straight ahead afterwards. In all the pictures, the instructions were the same: breathe in, breathe out, relax and let your body slump. This is the only reliable way of looking at posture, because it allows you to see someone’s "natural" posture, without them cheating through the use of muscular effort.

After correcting some spinal issues these people are standing up much straighter with their shoulders back, without any effort at all. What would you rather look like?

Chiropractie De Pijp in Amsterdam uses a unique method that is guaranteed to improve posture. This way you will be able to look better, feel better, and move better.

If you think you might have posture-related problems, you are welcome to contact Chiropractie De Pijp via [email protected].