Slouching in front of your computer or desk, or while we are watching TV or reading can get the worst of us. It’s a bad habit. But luckily, like all bad habits, it can be improved with a little self-discipline. It’s been proven–and you don’t mess with science.

Try it, right now as you read this article. Sit up straight. Am I sounding like your mother or ballet teacher? Pretend there is a string through the top of your head extending to the ceiling. Don’t over extend yourself—that’s almost as bad as a slouching spine. Allow the natural curves of your spine to take form in the top and bottom respectively. Feel better? Brighter? More alert? Science says you will. 

Posture awareness is directly connected with our moods.  When we sit or stand up straight a range of benefits come pouring in. Think it’s minor? It’s really not. Here are some of the immediate wonderful, and scientifically proven, benefits of a straight, healthy, good posture.

1. Increases breathing capacity

Intentional awareness of our posture and sitting up straight will allow more oxygen to your brain (about 20% more), and thus increase your creativity. A simple switch for a flow of great benefits.

2. Opens your heart

There is a reason why yoga and mediation starts with a straight spine. By being aware of our posture, we open our hearts and can more easily receive benefits like gratitude, awareness and increased compassion. We can all use more of that throughout our day, right?

3. Eliminates back pains

Most back pain problems are the result of unequal distribution of your weight—more pinch and strain in one area than the other. Sitting up straight and maintaing that balanced position throughout the day will correct and prevent most back pain issues.

4. Heightens awareness

Heightening awareness of your posture will heighten your awareness overall. Good posture leads to greater sensory focus and extends to the world around us. Maybe you’ll find you don’t need that second cup of coffee after all.

5. Increases blood circulation

Do you have poor circulation? Being aware of your posture is the best and most immediate thing you can do to increase blood circulation throughout your entire body. Not slouching opens up your body and allows your blood vessels the space they need to circulate your vital liquids properly.

6. Improves outlook

When we stand or sit up straight the world seems brighter. Really. A shocking study connected the importance of strong, intentional body language to increased self-esteem. Amy Cuddy explains good posture—and so much more—very compellingly in this TED talk.

image: Joe Logon

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The post 6 Ways Good Posture Improves Health: It’s Not Your Ballet Teacher Talking, It’s Science appeared first on EcoSalon.

Here are some of our favorite quotes to inspire living intentionally and with peace. What’s your favorite?

1. You cannot control the results, only your actions.
-Allan Lokos

2. The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mood of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change, for happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.
– Charles Morgan

3. The world is not to be put in order; the world is order, incarnate. It is for us to harmonize with this order.
-Henry Miller

4. The object of living is work, experience, happiness.
-Henry Ford

5. Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.
-Carl Jung

6. I’ve learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life.
-Maya Angelou

7. No one ever finds life worth living – one has to make it worth living.
-Winston Churchill

8. Living in a constant chase after gain compels people to expend their spirit to the point of exhaustion.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

9. Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake…
-Francis Bacon

10. We cannot live pleasantly without living wisely and nobly and righteously.
-Epicurus

11. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’
-Martin Luther King Jr.

12.Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.
-Brenden Francis

13. Consciousness is only possible through change; change is only possible through movement.
-Aldous Huxley

14. Do everything with a mind that lets go. Do not expect praise or reward.
-Achaan Chah

15. Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
– Buddha

16. As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
-Goethe

17. We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves.
-Henri Frederic Arnier

18. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
-Leonardo da Vinci

19. The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
-Henry David Thoreau

20. The point of life is happiness.
-The Dalai Lama

21. It is better to live in peace than in bitterness and strife.
-Confucius

22. We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
-Thornton Wilder

23. Be happy in the moment – that’s enough. Each moment is all we need – not more.
-Mother Teresa

24. Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.
-William Hazlett

25. Without vision, we perish.
-Proverbs

26. The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.
-Richard Bach

27. You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
-Mary Oliver

28. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.
-Lao Tzu

29. Peace is every step.
-Thich Nhat Hahn

30. Let him that would move the world first move himself.
-Socrates

31. Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.
-Saint Francis de Sales

Image: Rising Damp

The post 31 Quotes on Peaceful and Conscious Living appeared first on EcoSalon.