[Music] hello I'm Jam Masa an international social edate consultant author of etiquette books and a mother of two in today's video I'll be talking about how to have a good posture so we're going to look at the components of a good posture how to correct our posture while sitting walking as well as using our gadgets and also I'll show you some really good exercises for having a good posture so make sure to watch this video until the very end because you're going to get the best out of it but before I get started with today's video I want to thank Vivi an eco-friendly shoe brand that I've been collaborating with before as well I'm a huge fan of their shoes you can see me wearing those shoes often you can see even my friends joining me and getting more of these shoes because they're super comfortable they have really nice SES and they are very classy and elegant so you don't have to compromise on your comfort to still look very stylish the shoes I'm wearing right now are called Mary Jane pumps in red color if you know this season the trend is very much focused on Mary Jane pumps and ballet flats so if you are uh going to rock them then you should get a pair of of Mary Jane flats from Vivi they're super comfortable very easy to wear and uh they just make your feet look so elegant and so beautiful I also got myself a pair of Tara boots in dark chocolate color I love that the boots are very warm if you look inside they're much warmer than regular uh stretch boots and what I love about it is that it's so easy to put on as since I'm a mother of two I'm you know constantly running around I come home quickly change outfits and these boots are just so easy to put on and take off um so they're really a lifes Savior and also what I personally love about them is that I have very thin ankles and it's very hard for me to find the right kind of boots that will wrap my legs um my ankles and so these boots are perfect they're so stretchy they just wrap your food really well and look very good on and you can wear it with a mini skirt or you can even wear it under pants for example work pants they are very good they almost feel like socks on you Vivi is the brand where you can really go for comfort and Beauty at the same time make sure that you go on their website until November 30th because you're going to get the best kind of discount the more pair of shoes you buy the more is going to be your discount and the best part about Vivi brand is that they're offering free shipping for all orders as well as their return py is from 30 to 45 days so honestly I think it's the best deal out in the market right now if you are going to upgrade your shoes go for VII so now let's get back to our topic and that is how to have a good posture but before we talk about components of good posture let's look at why is a good posture so important why is there so much information out there about how to have a good posture and the reason is when we walk into some place the first thing that people notice is how we are holding ourselves it is going to make or break the deal we're going to either make an impression of someone who is confident who walks and owns the room or someone who is slouchy has a bad posture who gives off this Vibe of inconfidence shyness anxiety your posture tells a lot about how you feel inside and so in order for you to make sure that you give this Vibe of confidence you have to master your posture and the elements of a good posture are obviously the head shoulders our spine back and our legs these all make up a good posture so let's look individually at each segment so let's get started with our head because the way that we are positioning our head tells a lot about how we feel about ourselves and the most important thing to remember about the head is often times when people think hold your head straight or hold your head up people imagine pulling their head all the way up to the air so their nose is in the air that's not a good thing because it looks like you're being snobbish that you are a fool of yourself um that you disregard the rest of the people you might mentally think you're holding your head straight but all you're doing is lifting up your head up in the air it's not the right way the right way to hold your head is making sure that your chin is parallel to the ground and what that means is as if you can draw a line almost from your chin straight line from your chin to the air and then from the ground to the air so there are two similar lines that could be drawn from to the to the ground and from your chin up to the air this is the right way of holding your head again if you are holding your head down if you are looking down this makes an impression that you are shy that you're trying to hide something that you're anxious that you are not confident to face the world so to speak the next component very much close to our head are our shoulders they can tell a lot about how we feel in the environment that we are in so when our shoulders when we don't feel comfort comtable when we feel anxious when we are nervous we tend to tense up our shoulders so our shoulders will roll up closer to our ear almost like we are like a turtle trying to hide in our shell so our shoulders come up to our ears to protect us or again there are coming forward and inwards like this trying to cover our chest all of this are protective mechanisms trying to hide ourselves from the outer world that we consider to be dangerous what we need to do in order to give the air of confidence is that we have to open up our chest open up our neck open up our face and by that what we have to do is we have to roll our shoulders backwards so that our spine is straight but drop them down often times when people think of having a good posture they immediately roll up their shoulders high up but then they leave it close to their ear and again this position doesn't look like they're confident looks like they're tense so what you have have to do is you have to roll back and then drop down so your face and your neck and your chest open up the way that you can test it is you can do two kind of exercises one of them I've shown in in the older version of the pment is that this shoulder roll exercise where you are rolling your shoulder relaxing your shoulder and then really drastically kind of forcefully dropping them down and feeling this emotion what it feels like to drop down your shoulder the other thing that you can do is pinch your shoulder blades and then relax I'm going to show you how to do it you'll pinch the blades of your shoulder in close close close and then relax that way you're going to be able to feel it from the back of your shoulders you're going to feel the blades and their movement what you have to do the kind of a feeling you have to have is have your shoulder braids separated and relaxed so when your shoulders are tensed the shoulder braids tend to get inwards towards each other other and that gives you this tense look what you have to do is you have to be mindful of your body but also allow it to relax to exuberate confidence the next thing to pay attention to is obviously our spine our back the most important things you need to do for your back is make sure that you do more strengthening exercises for your back so that your back and your color muscles are strong enough to hold you upright um a lot of our back strength really depends on the core muscles and also obviously the back muscles um when we are thinking of having a good posture we have to think of tucking our belly in I get a lot of comments from women saying it's not good for us to tuck our belly but it's not good to relax your belly and always let it out one of the good things for women as well is to be able to hold up their core muscles and to really strengthen the lower abdominals that's actually healthy for you and when you are constantly mindful of your core muscles and your able to tuck them in and hold them in it's going to be good for your um pelvic area and it's really good for women as well so don't relax your tummy all the way in you have to hold it up roll it in and hold it and this is a good kind of an exercise that you can do even if you're at home just you know do 10 minutes at the wall try to relax your belly and then roll it and tuck it in and hold it in like that the reason I urge you to do this exercise at home at the wall is that you get a sense of what it feels when your belly is rolled in and tucked in and what does it feel when it's relaxed when you are trying this exercises at home you're going to feel your body more and be able to control it better the final element of course of a good posture is the positioning of our legs especially when it comes to you know whenever we're feeling nervous anxious our legs can really give away a lot of information they might be shaky we might feel some weakness in our legs and the best way to avoid this is to make sure that you place your feet hip wide apart so this kind of a posture when you have two of your feet parallel on the ground and really grounded on the floor gives you the sentiment that you are um sort of secure on the ground so in case if you are shaken you're nervous you're going to balance yourself and on both feet uh when you have your weight on only one feet and the other one is kind of relaxed the the weight is not distributed completely um equally in that sense if you have a shaky leg say or you're nervous one of those weights that H one of those legs that has less weight can really give off uh your nervousness and anxiety this also includes when if you're seated down if you are nervous make sure that you keep your both of your legs parallel on the ground steady on the floor it's going to help you feel much more in touch with the area as well as it's going to make you feel comfortable and secure wherever you are when you're standing with both of your legs on the floor hip width apart what you have to keep in mind is that do not lock your knees so this is a lock knee and this is a relaxed knee make sure to relax your knees because when your knees are locked again people from observing you can feel like you are tensed up it takes a lot of exercising and practicing to improve your posture but it's all doable so now let's get started by looking at different ways we can improve our posture when sitting down with when walking when using our gadgets so first things for first because majority of us spends a lot of time seated down at the office desk office chair you know classroom we need to be very mindful of our posture when we're seated down the first thing we need to do is we need to check if we are sitting correctly and to do so do the following watch this part and follow the instructions put your hands under your sit bones while you're sitting on the chair make sure that your palms are facing up adjust your position till you can feel the weight centered on each of your palms this would be your optimal seating position if you are seated on a chair adjust your chair if you can uh and your position your arms so that they're flex and they're not straight out you have to try to think that your elbows should be at the angle of 75 to 90° if they're too straight you're too far back from the from the table and if they are more than 90° then you're sitting too clothes or probably you're slouching since I mentioned that legs play huge part in our W posture so when seated down don't forget about your feet if you can opt to adjust the height of your chair say you're working at the office and you have a chair where the height is adjustable then use it so that your feet are grounded on the floor if you don't get to choose the chair it is fixed you cannot adjust the height then you can make sure that you use kind of a support in order to adjust the height um of the chair so that your feet are grounded on the floor uh say if you are someone too tall and when you're seated down your feet are just way above your knees are way above you what you have to do or you can do is use a small pillow to place it on your chair so that adjust the you know the height of your chair Therefore your feet are more relaxed grounded on the floor if you are someone who has a shorter height then you can use some kind of a footrest some kind of a stool that you can place under the off office desk and place your feet on that uh foot uh support or you know stool whatever it might be that allows you to give that extra height for your foot so your foot are actually resting on something rather than just hanging and dangling like that if you can opt for an ergonomic chair go for it because it's really good for you it takes the it aligns with your posture and makes it comfortable for really long hours in office if you can then again use pillow or foot dress to adjust the height of your office chair if you are somewhere public and you really can't adjust the the height of the chair or or the stool what you can do is for women especially we can use our heels or shoes with heels to adjust it if you're someone who is uh tall then you can wear maybe ballet flat like this or heels with really small pumps um but if you are for example someone who has a shorter stature what you could do is you could offer shoes with higher heel um so that it's easier for you so that your feet are not dangling while you're Seated on a chair and they're grounded and rested on the floor what else you could do is you could move closer to the tip or the end of the chair so that gives you more proximity to the ground so if you move slightly closer to the edge of the chair you can rest your foot on the floor a good posture will really much depend on the hours that we spend the way that we are holding ourselves up when we're seated down but also good posture depends on the exercising so if you're leading a life where you're mostly at your office desk you know sit it down then make sure to take breaks take a break do some stretching exercises you can bent down really relax your back and your hands and your shoulders or you can if you have a wall wall then you can do this kind of exercising for stretching your shoulders and your back um you can place your hand on the wall and just move your body away from the wall opening up your shoulders and do it for each arm and hold it for 15 to 20 seconds and then get back to work now let's take a look at having a good posture while walking I have mentioned this in the earlier Department video but here I want to uh show you some extra exercise that you can do in order to check if you are uh walking the right way so again we don't forget our head shoulders spine legs our knees should be relaxed they are slightly bent so we're not locking them and straightening them up like that they're relaxed and slightly bent and our hands are about by both of our sides and and they we are swaying them back and forth in a very natural way so we don't hold it up like that and stiffen it like that we're really relaxed and moving our arms as we walk the thing we need to remember is about the weight that we are carrying on our body so when your weight is mostly focused on the your heel of your feet you're naturally going to slouch so because the weight is majority majorly based on your heel you're likely to slouch what you have to do is Rock back and forth like that when you feel like you are slightly placing the weight on the ball of your feet that way when your weight is distributed to the ball of your feet you're going to naturally straighten up a good way to test this is to do this exercise by rocking back and forth back and forth and trying to put all your weight on the back of your heel and feeling how you're slouching and then bringing it forward to the ball of your feet and feeling how you're opening up this is also very well tested that for ladies if you are wearing heels when we are wearing heels the the weight is naturally shifted forward so a lot of people that are wearing heels they immediately see the change in their posture lot of women will say if I'm you know walking on Flats I'm I just slouch most of the time once I'm I'm wearing heels I open up I walk straight I don't know why this happens and the reason it happens it's not because that extra heel gives you some uh boost or confidence maybe it does but majorly this happens because the weight is shifted towards the front of your feet and hence makes you open up for men you don't wear heels what you have to do what you can do is mentally shift that weight forward therefore opening up your chest and opening up your posture next thing to remember when we are thinking about good posture is thinking of our posture when you're using gadgets especially nowadays you know the phones and laptops are extension almost of her body you'll never see anyone you know walking without a phone or uh sitting somewhere with a laptop it's almost a part of our body and using the gadgets has really um detrimentally affected our posture and many other um negative aspects of our life as well you know taking our life and um uh worsen our sleep cycles and so forth and so on if we're not using them in the right amount but when we're talking about posture realize that majority of the time when you are using your Gadget be your phone or your laptop you're looking down so the position of your neck and your face and your eyes is down this creates a lot of strain on your neck on your obviously posture you know it creates headaches spasms and obviously uh it leads to a poor posture over the time of using these gadgets what you can do is I'm not saying stay away from them because obviously I am also guilty of that I spent a lot of the hours on the phone on my laptop doing online consultations teaching um you know meeting clients and zoom calls so a lot of my life is surrounded with gadgets what I do when I'm using Gadget is I always make sure that I'm facing the gadget at an eye level so if I'm using the phone at home I try to place it on somewhere and just watch it from there or have a call on it um and if you're following me on Instagram you probably have seen when I do my online classes on on laptop I always stack up books under my computer and then place my computer if I'm working writing something I always make sure that the laptop is elevated enough to be at my eye level so I'm not looking down because you know this kind of a long postures for duration of time not overnight obviously but if you this is the Habit that goes happens every single day for you know years and years of looking down this will create you know neck problems and double chin and really bad posture so if you are using it be mindful but make sure that you place the gadgets at your eye level for the majority of time that you're using it and the last thing when it comes about having a good posture is not forgetting about your workouts having good posture is a habit so you can get into a habit of holding yourself upright and in order to do so you have to help your body and the way you can help it is through strength exercising yoga Pilatus any kind of stretching exercising so lightweight training really helps to tone up and build your muscles but once you have done L training or any kind of you know cardio or hard heavy training you have to incorporate some stretching so yoga pilat is a really great way of helping to lengthen your muscles sometimes when people you know are busy building their muscles they are overworking one part of their body so that poor posture can be actually from tensed up muscles that they're building say on right hand or left hand or disproportioned building of muscles in order to avoid this you have to always incorporate some stretching exercise to lengthen and relax the muscles because good posture is all about having the relaxed but toned up body so uh one exercise that is really great if you are not able to do any kind of other exercising if you're too busy for anything else or you have too many excuses for anything else you can do one minute of this exercise on a daily basis that's going to help you build your core your arms your shoulders and your back thank you so much for watching this video until the very end I hope that you enjoyed watching it and learned a lot from this video If you like this kind of content make sure to write in the comment section below what are some topics that you would like me to do more videos about and if you're interested in learning more about etiquette you can join my Patron etiquette Movie Club where I do a monthly analysis of different movies from an etiquette standpoint of view you can also get my books online that are deliverable to more than 80 188 countries around the world as well as join my online course that will give you a certificate of completion make sure to check out my weite for more information and if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask thank you so much and I'll see you in my next video bye