I really have very few regrets in life. I'm happy where I am and quite content with the choices I've made during my revolutions around the sun. Life is good.
However, there is one thing I wish I had done differently.
(I bet not.)
I wish I had listened to my parents when they told me not to slouch.
I'm being serious, people. I have always been a Type-A, check off the list, obedient person. I obeyed my parents rules. I listened to their advice and let them shape my personality in hundreds of ways. WHY DIDN'T I LISTEN when they told me to sit up straight?!?!
My dad used to threaten to strap a board to my back. I would have hated him so much if he had done so, but the older me thinks maybe he should have gone ahead and done it anyway.
One's spine is one's powerhouse. Our backbones quite literally keeps us standing and are home to our spinal cords, the highways of our nervous systems. The spine is made of 33 vertebrae linked together in a flexible chain, perfected over millions of years of evolution. It is a complex, beautiful piece of art.
The human spine naturally has a lovely S-shaped curve when viewed from the side. Unless you're a slouch. Then your spine, or more specifically... my spine, is shaped more like a C. All of that slouchy pressure puts undue stress on the lumbar region of my spine. As a result of 30 or so years of that pressure, I have a lot of pain in my low back. In the Winter of 2014, at the tender age of 32, my doctor told me I have chronic back pain, a slightly compressed disc, and early signs of arthritis. I also experience this really special tension and discomfort in my butt muscles called piriformis syndrome. And let's not talk about my shoulders and their constant tightness.
With exercise and attempts to improve my posture, things have gotten better for me. Old habits die hard though. I'm still a slouch and I still regret it.
Don't feel sorry for me.
Just sit up straight.
Don't feel sorry for me.
Just sit up straight.
