The posture theory

The Posture Theory is a concept used to explain why many people experience a variety of backaches, chest and stomach pains, and other symptoms without any particular diagnoses.
Previously, the symptoms had been regarded as the imaginary complaints of those with hypochondria, because there was no x-ray evidence of disease.

Causes
The actual cause of many of these symptoms remained a mystery until the publication of a 1980 essay entitled "The Matter Of Framework." In it, author M. A. Banfield first described how leaning forward with a stooped spine compresses the chest and abdomen resulting in stomach and chest pains, palpitations and breathlessness. In addition, the pressure on air and blood vessels in the chest can result in faintness and fatigue. After years of crooked posture, he postulates, the stooped spine alters the shape of the body’s organs, causing a multitude of symptoms.

The cause remained a mystery because
1. there was no immediate link between cause and effect, and
2. not everyone with poor posture develops such symptoms.

Why? Because other factors contribute, such as a stooped spine, sedentary work (which involves leaning toward a desk), and tight corsets or blets which reduce the chest and the abdominal space.

According to Banfield, slouching pushes the stomach into a vertical rather than horizontal position. Reformed this way, the stomach functions less efficiently, and can result in impaired digestion.

Palpitations can be felt when the chest in pushed back against the heart so the beating is more readily felt on the chest wall.

Banfield goes on to say people with sideways curvature of the spine, have one shoulder lower than the other. When such a person leans toward a desk, as to write, for instance, the spine twists, and the lower tip of their breastbone stabs the stomach, producing pain, weakness, and tenderness.

Another example is low quality vocal sounds that are produced when the a stooped head compresses the throat. For this, postural improvement methods, such as “The Alexander Technique,” have been used by both singers and radio announcers to straighten and strengthen the vocal cords for clear vocal quality.

Pressure on the lungs makes it difficult to take a full breath so the person will tend to take several quick deep breaths every few minutes.

The effect of leaning toward a desk is subtle, but patients find it difficult to sit still and constantly move about in their chairs or get up often to walk about. They seem to be generally restless and ultimately develop insomnia.

PREGNANCY PRESSURES

Symptoms are more common during pregnancy when the enlarging womb presses against the heart and lungs, and when the increasing weight of the baby puts pressure on the abdominal veins. Women have reported relief when laying down and rolling from side to side.

SHAKESPEARE SAW THE CONNECTION

In his play RICHARD III, Shakespeare seems to have seen the connection between pressure and symptoms when he wrote: "Oh, cut laces in sunder, that my pent heart may have some scope to beat, or else I swoon."

Translated into modern English and Posture Theory context would be: " Oh, cut the laces of my corset to relieve the pressure on my heart which is confined to such a small chest, so that it can have room to beat, and allow the blood to flow from my feet to my brain, or else I will faint."

Indeed, the symptoms were more commonly reported by corseted city girls than loosely- clothed country girls.

The corset compressed the waist and was responsible for countless illnesses and the fainting spells that were so common in the nineteenth century. Women typically relieved the faint by unlacing their corsets, which reduced the pressure on their waists, and by laying down on chaise lounges to allow the free flow of blood between their feet and their brains.

However, women did not believe the connection because they could not see the distorting affect the corsets had on their internal organs.

Only an anatomist could see the horrendous effects the corset had on deforming the insides of a woman.

Anatomists often cut open a woman after she died and saw the compressed and twisted stomach, liver and womb. Statistics showed that women who wore the tightest corsets had the shortest life expectancy.

Fortunately, the corset era came to an end during World War I. The men went to war while the women went to work in munitions factories. There, they could not get enough air into their lungs to do the heavy manual work until they discarded their corsets in favor of loose factory clothing.

The impetus of the theory was Banfield's own healing of his Da Costa's syndrome.

Between 1991 and 2000, he expanded the theory into a 1000-page book with more than 100 references and 300 illustrations. Now in its 11th edition, the book is carried in public, school, and university libraries worldwide.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu