2011-03-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

Two of my earlier blogs had sought to bring to your attention that the direction of our habitual line of sight profoundly influences our physical posture (and thus our health and sense of wellbeing) . I had also pointed out that the problem of posture in human beings is ancient.

www.posturalbias.blogspot.com (Dated: Nov 29, 2008)

www.posturalbias2.blogspot.com (Dated: Oct 6, 2009).

In this post we will attempt to achieve a better understanding of the problem. We will look at the issue from a fresh perspective, the perspective of proper balance of the head over the spine. There is reason to suspect that the balance of the head of adult humans is deeply wrong, and it could have become wrong not just 10,000 years back but perhaps much earlier.

Once we make the assumption that the balance of the head is wrong we are in a position to answer many questions regarding posture which otherwise appear inexplicable. The proposition we would like to make is that the balance of head of the child in this Norman Rockwell Painting, is correct ...

... whereas the usual balance of the head of adults where the head is held forward is incorrect. Do your own research, observe people around you, especially children; imagine a tangent to the two protrusions at the back (the pelvic hump and the shoulder hump, the surfaces that would come into contact with a bed), and study the relationship of the back of the head to this tangential surface. Observe how the position of the head varies dramatically with age, with the type of job a person is engaged in, etc; in all cases you will be hard put to find an adult who is holding his head well back. Have fun!

Proper balance of the human body is possible only when the head is held well back and the spine is free to flex backwards even as the pelvis tilts forward.

Support for this proposition:

1. We conclude that the head should be held well back, making the assumption that the child is most probably getting it right. If you observe small children carefully you will find that their bodies are very fluid, in sharp contrast to the arthritic way in which adults hold their bodies.
2. We conclude that the natural movement of the spine is to move backwards from observing the curvatures of the spine; the places where the spine can easily flex is at the neck and the small of the back; at both these places the natural curvature of the spine is such as to encourage backward movement!

Caution: Correcting posture is risky and it should not be undertaken lightly.

(I would have preferred to introduce this subject to you after two years, when I would be 99% certain about my hypothesis; I am taking a chance by introducing the subject to you now, when I am only 90% certain. But then, can we afford to sit on such an important issue forever? It is unfortunate that we have sat on this problem for a hundred years even after x rays made it clear that there were serious distortions in the human skeletal system. If my hypothesis is correct, it is very unlikely that more than a handful of adults whether rich or poor, citified or rural or tribal, athletic or non-athletic can be getting their posture any where near right.)

Selvaraj.

P.S. With this position of the head a serious problem arises with regard to the use of pillows. I wouldn't advise anyone to suddenly give up his pillow. You may however read my views on the subject (I am afraid it is somewhat of a random rambling at present - needs to be properly structured).. http://useofpillows.blogspot.in/

To be continued:
1. How did the adult head balance become so wrong?
2. Answering some important questions using the above model.

If you are new to this subject please visit:
www.humanposture.com
www.humanposture.blogspot.com

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Balance of the Head