Correcting Poor Posture, How to Feel More Confident

Getting fit and staying healthy will help you feel more confident and project a positive image about yourself. Slouching or stooping projects negative signals which might make people perceive you as nervous or lacking in confidence and authority.

Slouching and stooping is a result of bad posture which may have developed from childhood and into adulthood.

How any times were we told as a child by our parents or teachers to stand up straight? The primary reason they said this is so we didn’t look slovenly or dishevelled. Another possible reason is they didn’t want us to develop a bad back and maintain bad posture into adulthood.

Good posture helps you look more confident, self assured and contributes to feelings of self-worth. How many celebrities or successful politicians have you seen walking with bad posture? I'd imagine very few.

As well as being told to stand-up straight there are a number of devices that can help maintain good posture. There is the Magnetic orthopaedic posture corrector for your back and shoulder. It’s essentially a back brace/support strap. This is designed to improve posture and correct stooping. Magnets are strategically positioned to target the spine and lumbar region.

For children there are similar devices like a Child Back Support Band to prevent stooping.

A common theme with all these devices is that they physically change your posture. This means as long as you wear the devices your posture improves. They don’t change behaviour.

Bad Posture Belt

A novel device invented by Ellen Sundh is the Bad Posture Belt. What makes this device different is that it detects when your posture is bad and emits a sound, mildly irritating, to correct your posture. The belt detects the degree of curvature of your spine and when this is beyond a certain threshold emits the sound or voice that says, “bad posture”.

This means you learn to correct your posture rather than physically being ‘forced’ to maintain good posture which some of the posture correctors attempt to enforce.

The look and design will not be to everyone’s taste, but if you’re not comfortable with a brace to enforce good posture, the ‘talking’ Bad Posture Belt could be a good alternative.