Bad Posture Often Gets Worse After 50 — But This 10-Minute Exercise Can Help Fix It Quick

Research from Harvard Health said, "Whether it's the result of sitting at a desk all day, looking down at a smartphone, or lounging on a couch, poor posture is dogging people of all ages."

Excess weight, excess texting, stress, and too much sitting are all contributors. A study of the association between muscle strength and low back pain among middle-aged and older adults helped explain how our back muscles are just naturally a little bit weaker. So how can we fix it?

Bad posture often gets worse after age 50, but this 10-minute exercise can help fix it quickly:

Lie down on your stomach with your face down toward the floor. 

Slowly and gingerly lift the front part of your body, with your head up. Lift as high as is comfortable; don't push it too hard.

"Most explanations for the prevalence of back pain blame our upright walking posture and the wear and tear from hard use," explained neuroscientist Dr. John Kruse. 

"But we’ve had at least four million years to adapt to walking, and before that, our ancestors were mostly swinging through the trees, upright. Countries where people expend much more physical effort daily don’t have higher rates of back pain than those in more sedentary countries."

Adding to the problem is the globally recognized relationship back pain has with depression. A study of associations between back pain and major depression in US adults helped explain how the two conditions work together. As back pain increases, so does depression, and as depressive episodes increase, so does back pain. The reciprocal negative impact of back pain on mental health reinforces the importance of exercising.

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Keep your arms at your sides and hands on your hips. 

This exercise, which is referred to as Salabhasana or Locust Pose in Yoga, activates many tension-bearing back and leg muscles. Do this exercise for ten minutes.

Even in more severe cases of back pain, studies have shown that "yoga may help improve mobility, reduce reliance on medications, and enhance quality of life, and could be considered as a complementary approach alongside conventional medical treatments. Measurable outcomes as well as self-reported improvements were higher in yoga groups than in controls, and in some studies, even better than drug therapy."

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Ten times is enough for the first time. Repeat this exercise daily and keep adding repetitions. Over time, your back will strengthen and straighten out. No more poor body posture.

Wellness coach Lawrence Gold suggested, "Notions of good posture are obsolete, and the alternative is good movement. Good movement is building good movement memory, which is done automatically and fine-tuned by the movements of the moment. How do you develop good movement memory? You develop it the same as any other memory, by repeated experience until the memory forms.

"Next time you’re out in public, watch people walk. Many people lumber, some plod, some bounce, many lean to one side or come down heavier on one side than the other, or come down heavy on both sides as they walk. It isn’t genetic, it’s movement memory."

RELATED: People With Good Posture Are More Likely To Have This Sinister Personality Trait, According To Research

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