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How to Not Be a Slouch

Photo credit: pchyburrs - Getty Images
Photo credit: pchyburrs - Getty Images

From Town & Country

Growing up in the South, I was reminded by my mother not to hunch over my plate like an animal every night at dinner. When I entered junior cotillion as a preteen, I learned proper deportment along with table manners and ballroom dancing, although my training stopped short of having my shoulders tied to a chair or walking around with a book on my head. Maybe that’s why none of it stuck.

Now, bent over my computer like a fairytale crone offering someone a poisoned apple, I’m finally understanding the importance of posture. My office desk and ergonomic chair have given way to a lumpy sofa, thanks to the work-from-home situation. I rarely sit on a dining chair, since I have no kitchen table in my tiny apartment. My back aches, and I swear I see a dowager’s hump forming. Poor posture itself won’t cause any long-term health issues, Andrew Hecht, chief of spine surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, assures me, but sitting for long periods can cause muscles to contract, leading to back pain. Hunching or leaning forward can make this worse.

But there’s another reason we have always been told to sit up straight, according to ­Viviane Neri, principal of Institut Villa Pierrefeu, a world-renowned Swiss finishing school. “We insist on good posture,” she says, because it is a sign not just of good breeding but of respect for others.

Posture is especially important today, when we communicate virtually or through masks that block our faces. “Posture is body language,” says etiquette expert Diane Gottsman, founder of the Protocol School of Texas. It expresses confidence, and it tells other people you’re engaged with them. “Good posture is graceful, strong, and empowered,” she says. And, unlike most other beauty enhancers, it’s free.

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

Well, having it is. Getting it is another story. My social media feeds are bombarded with ads for posture trainers like straps and wearable electronic bulbs that vibrate when you slouch. The issue with these is that they “don’t take your full body into account,” says Lindsay Newitter, an Alexander Technique teacher who is known as the Posture Police. The Alexander Technique is a system that seeks to decondition harmful body movements to improve posture and alleviate pain. In a series of virtual lessons I had with Newitter, she rarely focused on my shoulders (other than to tell me not to overcompensate by thrusting them back, which she calls backward slouching). Instead she showed me exercises focused on my feet, hips, neck, and head, with the goal of retraining my body to sit and stand more comfortably and more erect. “Posture is a way of being,” she told me, and changing it takes an increased awareness of how your body moves in space.

A typical posture program with Newitter takes a minimum of five to 10 sessions and requires daily independent exercises. Improving posture, unlike learning which fork to use for the fish course, is an ongoing pursuit, but mastering it has far-reaching effects. In fact, it may be the most enduring beauty secret of all. Maybe that’s what my mother was trying to tell me all along.

This story appears in the November 2020 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW

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