The New Rules of Posture: How to Sit, Stand, and Move in the Modern World

A manual for understanding the anatomical and emotional components of posture in order to heal chronic pain

• Contains self-help exercises and ergonomics information to help correct unhealthy movement patterns

• Teaches how to adopt suitable posture in the modern sedentary world

Many people cause their own back and body pain through their everyday bad postural and movement habits. Many sense that their poor posture is probably the root of the problem, but they are unable to change long-standing habits.

In The New Rules of Posture, Mary Bond approaches postural changes from the inside out. She explains that healthy posture comes from a new sense we can learn to feel, not by training our muscles into an ideal shape. Drawing from 35 years of helping people improve their bodies, she shows how habitual movement patterns and emotional factors lead to unhealthy posture. She contends that posture is the physical action we take to orient ourselves in relation to situations, emotions, and people; in order to improve our posture, we need to examine both our physical postural traits and the self-expression that underlies the way we sit, stand, and move. The way we walk, she says, is our body’s signature.

Bond identifies the key anatomical features that impact alignment, particularly in light of our modern sedentary lives, and proposes six zones that help create postural changes: the pelvic floor, the breathing muscles, the abdomen, the hands, the feet, and the head. She offers self-help exercises that enable healthy function in each zone as well as information on basic ergonomics and case histories to inspire us to think about our own habitual movements. This book is a resource for Pilates, yoga, and dance instructors as well as healthcare professionals in educating people about postural self-care so they can relieve chronic pain and enjoy all life activities with greater ease.

• Balancing Your Body: A Self-Help Approach to Rolfing Movement
• Rolfing: Reestablishing the Natural Alignment and Structural Integration of the Human Body for Vitality and Well-Being
• Your Body Mandala: Posture as a Path to Presence
• A Guide to Better Movement: The Science and Practice of Moving With More Skill And Less Pain
• The Endless Web: Fascial Anatomy and Physical Reality
• Pain-Free Posture Handbook: 40 Dynamic Easy Exercises to Look and Feel Your Best
• Anatomy of Movement (Revised Edition)
• The Breathing Book: Good Health and Vitality Through Essential Breath Work
• Heal Your Posture: A 7-Week Workshop with Mary Bond
• Anatomy Trains: Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists