Change Your Posture, Change Your Life

How the Power of the Alexander Technique Can combat back pain, tension and stress

health
personal development
self help
Rediscover your natural poise with this Learnerd summary of ‘Change Your Posture, Change Your Life.’ Learn the core principles of the Alexander Technique, including Inhibition and Direction, to release harmful tension, correct faulty sensory perception, and bring your body back into balance for a healthier, more conscious life.

1 Listen to Change Your Posture, Change Your Life Summary

2 Book Summary: Change Your Posture, Change Your Life by Richard Brennan

The Alexander Technique is a method of unlearning the harmful habits that cause poor posture, pain, and stress. Author Richard Brennan explains that most of our physical problems are not inevitable but are the result of unconscious misuse of our bodies. The technique teaches us to become aware of these habits and consciously choose a more balanced and efficient way of moving and being.

2.1 The Problem: Harmful Habits and Faulty Senses

Most of us try to improve our posture by doing something - sitting up straighter, pulling our shoulders back - but this often creates more tension. The Alexander Technique reveals that the root of poor posture is unconscious habit.

  1. Unconscious Misuse: We habitually hold unnecessary tension in our daily activities - sitting, standing, or even resting. This tension pulls our bodies out of their natural alignment, leading to pain and dysfunction. We might clench our jaw, hunch our shoulders, or arch our back without realising it.
  2. Faulty Sensory Appreciation: The biggest obstacle to improvement is that our harmful habits feel right. Over years of misuse, our internal sense of our body’s position (kinaesthesia) becomes unreliable. What feels straight to us may actually be slumped or crooked. Therefore, we cannot rely on our feelings to guide us; we need to re-educate our senses.

The instruction to “sit up straight” is one of the most damaging pieces of postural advice. It encourages us to use our phasic muscles (designed for quick movements, which tire easily) to hold a rigid position. This creates more tension and fatigue. True good posture comes from allowing our deep postural muscles (designed for endurance) to work automatically, which only happens when we release unnecessary tension.

Much of our poor posture is caused by poorly designed furniture, especially backward-sloping chairs found in schools, offices, and cars. This design forces the pelvis to tilt backwards, causing the spine to slump into a ‘C’ shape. A simple and effective solution is to place a firm, wedge-shaped cushion on the chair, with the thicker end at the back. This levels the sitting surface, allowing the spine to maintain its natural curves with ease.

2.2 The Primary Control: The Secret to Natural Poise

F.M. Alexander discovered that the relationship between the head, neck, and back governs the coordination of the entire body. He called this the “Primary Control”.

  1. Head Leads, Body Follows: The head is delicately balanced on top of the spine. When the neck is free from tension, the head has a natural tendency to lead slightly forward and up.
  2. A Cascade of Release: This subtle movement of the head initiates a lengthening response down the entire spine. Instead of being compressed, the spine de-compresses, creating space and freedom throughout the torso.
  3. The Root of the Problem: Most people interfere with this mechanism by habitually tightening their neck muscles, pulling their head back and down onto the spine. This compresses the vertebrae, restricts breathing, and throws the entire body out of balance.

2.3 The Core Principles: Inhibition and Direction

The Alexander Technique is not a set of exercises but a mental discipline applied to everyday activity. The two core principles are Inhibition and Direction.

  1. Inhibition (The Conscious Pause): This is the practice of stopping your automatic, habitual reaction to a stimulus. Before you get out of a chair, answer the phone, or lift an object, you pause for a moment. This pause creates a space where you can choose to move differently, rather than defaulting to your ingrained patterns of tension. It is the key to breaking bad habits.
  2. Direction (The Mental Instruction): In the moment of pause created by inhibition, you give yourself a series of mental instructions, or “Directions”. These are not physical commands but gentle thoughts aimed at encouraging release and length. You do not do the directions; you think them and allow your body to respond.

This is the core concept that what feels “right” and “normal” to you is often your harmful habit. For example, when an Alexander teacher guides you into a more balanced, upright posture, it may initially feel crooked, strange, or even wrong. This is because you are feeling the change from your accustomed pattern of tension. Trusting the new, easier way of being over your old, familiar feeling is a crucial part of the learning process. Using a mirror can help you see the reality of your posture versus what you feel.

2.4 Other key ideas

“End-gaining” is the habit of focusing solely on the end result of an action, without paying attention to how you achieve it (the “means whereby”). This often leads to rushing, unnecessary tension, and poor coordination. Examples include hurrying to finish a task or straining to reach for an object. By using Inhibition and Direction, you shift your focus to the quality of your movement in the present moment, which paradoxically leads to a better, more efficient outcome.

Poor posture directly restricts breathing. Instead of forcing “deep breaths,” the Alexander Technique focuses on freeing the ribs and torso to allow breathing to happen naturally. The “Whispered ah” is a procedure to encourage this:

  1. Allow your neck to be free.
  2. Gently let your jaw drop open.
  3. Whisper a soft “ah” sound for the full length of your natural out-breath, without forcing it.
  4. Close your lips and allow the in-breath to happen automatically through your nose.

This process helps release tension in the jaw, throat, and ribcage, allowing the diaphragm to function without interference.

Many of our movement problems stem from an inaccurate mental picture of our own anatomy. For example, many people think the top of the spine is at the base of the neck, when the joint where the head balances (the atlanto-occipital joint) is actually much higher, between the ears. Believing the joint is lower causes us to move from the wrong place. By learning the true location and function of our joints—such as the hip joints being in the groin, not the waist—we can learn to move more efficiently and in harmony with our body’s design.

2.5 Key Phrases to use

These are the primary “Directions” to think to yourself during a pause (Inhibition) or while performing an activity. Remember, you are thinking them, not physically doing them.

  • Allow the neck to be free…
  • …so that the head can go forward and upward…
  • …in order that the back can lengthen and widen.
  • Think of your shoulders releasing away from one another.
  • Think of your knees pointing forward and away from each other (when sitting/bending).
  • Allow your whole body to release upwards, away from the floor.

3 Summary Video

4 Practise

One of the most powerful self-help procedures from the book is the Semi-Supine Position. It allows gravity to help decompress the spine and gives you a chance to practise Directions in a state of rest. Aim to do this for 10-20 minutes daily.

  1. Lie down on a firm but comfortable surface, like a carpeted floor (not a bed).
  2. Place a small stack of paperback books under your head. The height should be just enough to prevent your head from tilting back, keeping your neck long.
  3. Bend your knees and place your feet flat on the floor, about hip-width apart. Position them at a comfortable distance from your body so your back muscles can release.
  4. Rest your hands on your lower abdomen or by your sides.
  5. Keep your eyes open to remain present and aware.
  6. Practise your Directions: Mentally repeat “Allow my neck to be free, my head to release forward and up, and my back to lengthen and widen onto the floor”. Observe any tension in your body and gently think of it releasing, without forcing anything.

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