In addition to chiropractic care, quantum neurology rehabilitation is used in our office in order to help patients improve their posture, while helping them to overcome their symptoms. Improving our posture is more than creating a good outward appearance for other people. Doctors of chiropractic have a strong reputation of helping individuals improve their posture. Confidence increases, self worth improves, and hormonal changes take place.
Let’s explore how slouching, hunching, and other bad postural habits could be sabotaging your body’s ability to produce this essential hormone, and what you can do to fix it. But what if I told you that the way you sit and stand could be quietly draining your testosterone levels? When you think about testosterone, posture probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. This means more oxygen and nutrients are delivered to cells, promoting better mental clarity, mood, and energy levels. Good posture doesn’t just improve overall circulation; it can also impact blood flow to key areas, such as the brain and genitals. When the body is slouched, it can compress vital areas such as the chest, abdomen, and lower back, restricting blood flow to essential organs and muscles.
Studies have shown that standing or sitting in a slouched position can lead to a decrease in testosterone levels, while adopting open and expansive postures can boost testosterone production. Conversely, closed-off postures can elevate cortisol levels and contribute to feelings of stress and anxiety. Closed, collapsed postures signal defeat and insecurity, raising cortisol and lowering your sex hormones. Harvard research on "power poses" suggests that open, upright postures can increase testosterone levels by up to 20%, while closed, hunched postures can reduce it. Research shows that bad posture can increase levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. By improving posture, you can boost testosterone production, reduce stress, and improve blood flow throughout the body.
They did indeed observe an increase of testosterone and a decrease of cortisol in individuals who had adopted an expansive posture and the reverse changes in individuals who had adopted a constrictive posture. The present results suggest that even repeated power posing in a context where social stimuli are task-relevant does not elicit changes in hormone levels. A total of 82 male participants repeatedly adopted an expansive or constrictive posture for 2 min in between blocks of a task that consisted in categorizing faces based on first impressions. The stress hormone cortisol also demonstrated changes when the posture was altered to "power" and "defeated" positions.
Together, the repeated 2 min periods in which participants adopted one of two standing postures, together with the encouragement of a similar, but freely adaptable sitting position during the face categorization task, added up to a "larger dose" of posture while avoiding discomfort. Depending on the participant’s posture condition, she finally instructed participants to (1) sit upright with feet apart or (2) keep back and shoulders slumped and legs parallel or crossed during the task as far as comfortable for them, which supposedly served to "stabilize" the effect of postures on heart rate. The expansive and constrictive posture involved open or closed limbs, erect or slumped upper body and straight or downward head tilt, respectively (see Fig. 2). Given inherent biological differences in testosterone and progesterone production between men and women, analyses of these hormones need to be done separately for each sex (Stanton, 2011).