Eli5 Why does bad posture feel so…. good.
In: Biology
For me it absolutely doesn’t. I have very weak back muscles and when I sit down, my back bends weirdly which makes my shoulder muscles hurt sometimes. My spine is also bend to the left which gets really hurtful sometimes and when sitting down I have to activately sitting upright wich is very uncomfortable and exhausting and when I stand upright I have a sway back due to my weak back muscles. So Idk what’s wrong with your posture but for me it feels anything but good.
I just want to add that, there’s a lot of misinformation in this thread about how bad posture, weak muscles or inflexible muscles cause back pain, this is not true.
For the same reason why staying in shape, eating healthy, or a lot of generally good things might be hard for a lot of people: it takes work and we’re often very lazy and can’t be bothered hahah.. if feels good to eat junk food (until you’re a certain age lol) and do various other things, but in the long run, it’s not the best for your body.
Smoking DMT makes me really feel my posture and automatically sit upright and put everyhting in the correct position. It’s only then when I really f*eel* my posture.
In my understanding, which doesn’t go much further than a 5 year olds.
Humans adapt. We’ve adapted to the constant sitting and typing, or just sitting in general.
If we sat constantly, we’d be comfortable when slouched forward.
It’s the standing up the issue, we want to revert back to what we’ve adapted to, sitting. When we stand, we have to use muscles that weren’t used previously.
Good posture is hard
As others have pointed out already, it feels good because it’s usually the most economic way for your body to be. Forcing yourself to be in ‘good posture’ takes more muscles and more energy, so it feels awkward. Also ‘bad posture’ isn’t proven to be bad in any way by science so you shouldn’t worry about it too much.
It will catch up to you.
Sincerely, 26 and getting over a back injury with newfound appreciation for good posture and listening to your body.
Poor posture being bad is a myth that has been debunked by many different studies. We naturally avoid the types of bad posture that are actually harmful, and posture practises to “fix” bad posture while shown to have significant improvement in your posture have also shown to do absolutely nothing for the pain usually attributed to “poor posture”.
Read this for more (it also includes citations to studies) https://www.painscience.com/articles/posture.php#sec_matter
Because your body is used to it. Over time bad posture hurts. Get good posture, keep good posture and youll be feeling much better later in life.
just a note, having core strength as well as shoulder strength makes good posture feel medium-good and in a lot of cases makes it POSSIBLE.
Latest Answers