ost of us know that standing up straight makes us both look and feel better. The problem is that we live lives pretty much designed to create bad posture. Looking at your phone? Check. Working at a desk? Check. Sitting at a computer all day, working long hours, sitting on the sofa watching TV at night? Check, check and check.

So how important is good posture? Can improving our posture also improve our health? And what if you’ve had bad posture for years—is it still possible to change it?

We spoke with some experts: Ryan Fraass, a physical therapist with David Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine Center; Carmen A. Petraglia, an orthopedic surgeon with South Hills Orthopaedic Surgery Associates and St. Clair Hospital; and Ian Wagner, a chiropractor with Wagner Chiropractic.

WHAT CONSTITUTES GOOD POSTURE?

Fraass: Typically, a balance between body mass in the front and body mass in the back. It’s a symmetry that your body wants. Proper posture is all about decreasing the amount of force going through the spine and allowing the muscles to take some of the load off our natural structures, like our spine and our ligaments and bones.

Petraglia: When your head is centered over your pelvis and when you’re not really using any accessory muscles to maintain good balance and good alignment overall.

Wagner: Posture is how you hold your body. So when we have good posture, the muscles that are surrounding the spine are balanced and supporting the body equally. Basically your spine should be in a neutral position.

SO, BAD POSTURE WOULD BE THE OPPOSITE?

Fraass: When people first come in, I look at how they are sitting: is their head extended forward, are their shoulders rounded forward? Do they have that natural S-curve for where the upper neck curves a little bit and you get a reversal of that curve where it follows up in the lower back?

There’s a lot of research that indicates that every inch of forward head movement functionally increases the weight of your head by 10 pounds. The weight doesn’t change, but the force required to hold it does. So if somebody has tension pain at the back of the neck, it’s probably because those muscles are overworked.

Petraglia: There’s too much fatigue on your muscles when your posture is unbalanced. That extra stress can increase your chance of an injury.

Wagner: Bad posture has a tremendous effect on your health. It affects your back, neck, and shoulders, and causes pain and stiffness. It increases the load on your joints, which can lead to further ailments like osteoarthritis or just inflammation of your joints. It’s easy to tell about your posture: when you stand with your back to a wall, everything should touch—your shoulders, your buttocks, everything.

WHAT SPECIFIC AILMENTS CAN BAD POSTURE LEAD TO?

Fraass: Often, bad posture is what leads to that extra compression on the discs in your back, which can mean all kinds of nerve symptoms down the arms and legs. And think about your lungs: when you sit in a flexed position for a prolonged period of time with your arms up—like at a desk—you kind of take away your ability for your upper ribs to be able to expand for upper lung capacity and overall depth of breath.

Petraglia: There have been studies that show that patients with bad posture have higher rates of gastric reflux disease. They think it’s related to forward slouching and developing a pot belly. That puts more stress on your gastric system, your digestive system, and your ability to break down food.

It puts a lot of stress on your diaphragm as well. You’re losing lung capacity when you’re leaning forward and your lungs aren’t able to expand in an effortless way, so you increase your lung pressure, which is not good overall.

Wagner: When you put unnecessary stress on the muscles holding your head up—say, when you’re sitting at a computer—the muscles supporting your neck are being strained the whole time. That can cause headaches and, of course, neck and upper back pain. When you’re in that position for an extended period of time, you’re hurting your joints, your spine, even your nervous system. It can also affect your mood.

It seems like modern life is pretty much a laboratory for bad posture. We have to sit fo

IT SEEMS LIKE MODERN LIFE IS PRETTY MUCH A LABORATORY FOR BAD POSTURE. WE HAVE TO SIT FOR LONG PERIODS, WE’RE ALWAYS LOOKING AT PHONES AND COMPUTERS, WE DRIVE ALL THE TIME. HOW CAN WE COMPENSATE FOR THAT?

Fraass: Remember that the best posture for you is often your next posture—meaning that it’s very important to stand up and move every hour and adjust your body. I think a lot of it is re-education, thinking about where the muscles are, playing with the position. Pull your head back a little bit and see how it feels versus pushing it forward. People have a big tendency to be tight through the front and really weak in the back muscles because our front muscles are so overworked.

Petraglia: Take frequent breaks, get up and move around, switch between sitting and standing. If you’re sitting in front of a computer monitor, try to maintain the monitor at an upward height so you’re not looking down all the time. You want it at least at eye level or even higher.

Wagner: If you expect your posture to improve over a week or two, you’re going to be disappointed. This is a long, slow procedure, especially considering how long it took you to get to this point. It takes a while to do it, but you can improve your posture. We’ve seen postures change over time in our patients, we’ve seen spinal structures change over time from doing the correct things and instilling good habits on a daily basis.

WHAT ABOUT DESK CHAIRS AND STANDING DESKS?

Fraass: Standing desks are great, but it’s also not good to stand for eight hours. Being in any one position for eight hours, regardless of how anatomically perfect it is, is still going to be excess loading through the joints and musculature. The key is the transitions. As for desk chairs, adjustability is key.

Petraglia: There are different types of chairs that have good, strong lumbar support, which I think is important. Chairs should have higher arm supports, so your wrists are straight, as opposed to flexed down, which increases the chance of carpal tunnel syndrome. I like standing desks; we have them in our office.

Wagner: I love standing desks, especially the ones where you can raise and lower it, so you can change position. Stand for two hours, then sit for an hour. Don’t just be in one position all day.

ANYTHING ELSE PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW?

Fraass: Posture is essentially a battle against gravity pushing down on us and our bodies’ ability to remain upright. So it’s something we’re going to have to work on from now until the end of our life span. Regardless of which portion of that life span you’re in, the biggest thing is just to be mindful of it. It’s also knowing that perfect posture is not 100 percent identical for everybody—we’re all different shapes and sizes.

Petraglia: The gold standard for ways to improve posture is in the setting of a healthcare professional, such as a physical therapist who can provide some of the exercises for flexibility, range of motion and core-strengthening that we should all be doing as we get older.

Wagner: One other thing to be aware of: your sleeping position. You think it doesn’t matter but it’s huge. If you’re lying in the same position six or eight hours a night and it’s wrong, you’re instilling bad habits into your back and spine that are eventually going to hurt you. Also: arch supports. If you’re standing all day, you need proper footwear. If you don’t have proper arch support, you can change the entire position of your hip joints and everything in your lower back.