- Proper posture should feel effortless*.
One should’nt have to think about forcing oneself to sit upright spine neck straight or shoulders back touching ground in savasana.It should just happen. The forward hunch and/or rounded shoulders or whatever you might have will just return the moment you stop thinking about having to make a consicous effort to correct it and assume correct posture or good alignement in savsana, in a seat or whatever. M. Alexander said we could make the bodily changes by consiously changing how moved but other folk influenced by him said he was kinda mistaken and that one need to do specifi things/excercises for this to happen.
Moshe Feldenkrais and Thomas Hanna indicated this. I think they’re right.
Imbalances specifically unequal tension between opposing muscle groups are often the source. They could be moulded or even caused by emotional/attitude/enviroonment factors or habits. Eventually the body/mind/brain think it’s normal, habituation, and changes cann’t be made unless one does specific things in a systematic way and in a certain way, i.e with awareness. The tension habits or patterns( or emotional grooves even) become unstuck.And you inhabit yourbody with ease, freedon and comfort, free from any muscle group pulling this way or that way, forwards, and/or backwards and/or to one side.
sounds like the front of you bdy may bee quite tight, so your ribcage is hunched over, shoulders rounded.
some folk identify the emotions that go with this as anxiety, panic and fear,( the withdrawal response). in hanna somatics they call it the red-light reflex, as opposed to the green light reflex which affects the muscles of the front of the body and connected with the action response, an arched lower back. alot of folk often have a combination of the two as tension in the front of the body can mean tensionin the front body- (they’re related). The reference to reflex is because they are hardwired messages/ pathwayas in the brain and cortex that are keeping the muscles in a permanent level of tension.These buttons need switched off and new pathways reawakened or woken up.
You can acheive this through mindful yoga or hanna somatics.The latter will work through reroutiing new sensory-motor impressions via muscles-brain feedback training, for which there are specifi excercises or prescriptions for which you can do. A trained teacher could be consulted in yoga ,who can see what you are doing, right or worng, or not doing.The hanna somatics route could be acheived quicker through a private session with a certified ’ hanna somatics educator’ if you are lucky enough to live near one. They have a wealth of tools/ presriptions for different jobs and individiuals just lke a well trained experienced therapist or yoga teacher. hanna somatic works mainly on the physical body and mind. Yoga would seem like themore complete mind-body practcie but it is a bit of a minelfield in the sense very powerful in a positive way but also equally potentialy dangerous.As the previous poster has said elsewhere on this forum, in the wrong hands these powerful tools can do as much harm or more than they can do good.Experienced yogis will hoefully have learned to guard against complacency as it can be disastrous.
I just read your reply- so iwll add that depressed breathing is often linked to hunched tight chest or front muscles adn rounded shoudlers, something i believe now well documented in medicine. Visceral organ function, depressed chest and tight chest abdominal muscles often cause breathing problems as well high blood pressure, heart attacks risk etc . In a nutshell what i am saying is depresed breathing is intimately linked with r caused by a depressed chest and the evidence in modern medicine can show this…Dr Thomas Hanna made this observation too and drew on the mountain of research and conclusions found there as well as the people he treated with his therapy
Hope this helps
