Metabolism, Hormones, & Posture
You can tell a lot about a person by how they move and how they carry themselves. You could probably guess their personality, health, and mindset (at least in the moment) fairly accurately just by a brief observation of them. This can all be done without even speaking, as body language is a universally understood concept across all other animals.
We know this instinctively because much of the shape and form of the physical body is a product of metabolism and hormones, energy. A healthy animal in the wild is going to stand tall effortlessly, while the sick or weak animal is going to shrink themselves to hide from potential threats.
If this much information can be gathered from someone else, imagine what that same position is telling yourself. Your posture is a constant subconscious affirmation as to your state of being, your metabolism, your hormones, etcetera.
This idea of the physical body being a result of the energy and hormones that come before it is true, but it is not strictly a one way street. These things feed each other as the better the posture and movement, the more vibrant the metabolism and the healthier the hormones. Ideally this works together to create an ever stronger and resilient organism that is able to sustain this health through the rigors of life.
For most people it is about getting out of the loop of stress, catabolism, and degeneration and into the generative one. Sometimes getting out of this loop requires an approach from multiple angles as just making dietary or environmental changes may not be enough.
It must be said first that there is no one “good posture” for all humans. This is especially the case as life is synonymous with change and movement. You will never be able to hold a perfect position as you walk or move or do anything else that life demands of you.
Good posture and mechanics are a matter of:
Feeling good
Moving and existing should feel good and be without any sort of pain, discomfort, or limitations.
Movement should be effortless and stimulating to your mind and body.
Looking good
Mechanics and posture should innately look good. If something appears awkward or strange it probably is.
Performing well
Lastly, this should translate to power, efficiency, speed, and precision.
Whatever you demand of your body it should excel at.
What this looks like will vary (slightly) from person to person and may even change over the course of one’s life. However, this is almost always going to be a matter of moving in a manner that is concurrent with the design of your body.
So how do your posture and your mechanics go on to affect your metabolism and hormones? There are multiple ways this can happen, all of which are interconnected. It is not necessarily one thing that goes on to affect your metabolism, but the combined adaptations of nearly all systems in your body.
Here are some of the most impactful ways that how you breathe, move, stand, etc. can impact your hormones:
Sensory Input From Fascia
To start, much of your physical body is composed of elastic connective tissue known as fascia. One of its roles is to communicate mechanical tension within itself to the rest of the body. This information is combined with that from other parts of the body (nerves, vision, inner ear, sensory cells) in order to create the most accurate picture of oneself within the outside environment.
This network even makes its way down to individual cells through proteins known as integrins. Thus, cells are able to sense changes to positions and movements by physical forces that pull on the integrins. Physical positions and movements can then have a direct impact on the function of cells themselves, altering their cytoskeleton, genetic expression, and even behavior of their mitochondria (metabolism).
Toxic, inefficient, or otherwise poor movement patterns may cause negative adaptations to stress. Though this may depend on the specifics of where this occurs in the body, the cells in the affected region will change themselves and their metabolism in response. Normally this is a shift towards fibrotic and glycolytic conditions and away from the mitochondrial metabolism of healthy cells.
Given that fascia and all tissues in the body are connected, the effects will never be purely “local” but global, to a degree.
Some more research on “integrins”:
Fascia functions as a living fiber optic system that propagates biophotons --light produced by cells-- throughout the body. This is meant to communicate information from cells at light speed, in conjunction with hormones and nerves. Injuries or inefficient use of the fascia may cause this information to become scattered or otherwise inaccurate.
The fascia is also intertwined with the autonomic nervous system, which regulates the secretion of hormones via connections to the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis (HPA). This is true for both men and women as there is a further relationship with the gonads (ovaries, testes). Physical/mechanical stress can translate into metabolic and hormonal stress fairly easily.
These points should reinforce that there is no separation from your physical body and your metabolic/hormonal one. They are one on every level and respond/adapt accordingly.
Autonomic Function
The connection to the autonomic nervous system goes deeper than just fascia. Much of what we consider posture or movement is meant to happen without thinking. Countless muscles are working at any given moment to allow you to do what you need to do. You don’t have to think about how you breathe, how you stand, or how you walk (ideally). This is because much of it is regulated by the autonomic nervous system.
Muscles of the neck, tongue, jaw, eyes, diaphragm, and pelvic floor are all controlled by the ANS. These are often considered the foundation of your bodily mechanics because of their centralized location near the brain and other sensory mechanisms like the inner ear. Again, these work behind the scenes without you needing to think.
Injuries and/or bad habits can change these otherwise subconscious patterns in order to adapt. Your head may creep too far forward, you may start breathing through your mouth, or you may move with a hitch in your gait. All of these change the information that is being put into the ANS and can skew its perception of what is going on both inside and outside.
This is important because of the ANS’s role in digestion as well as metabolism, as it coordinates the dance between the thyroid and the adrenal glands. Physical stress from within one’s own body can end up warping how the autonomic nervous system responds to stimuli. Digestion and blood supply to the thyroid may wane while the adrenals compensate. It is when this becomes your default state of existence that problems build on themselves.
One interesting phenomenon is that mechanical stimulation of the pharyngeal muscles causes the release of hormones from the thyroid gland. This is something that occurs when breathing naturally through your nose; the pharyngeal muscles contract in order to maintain patency and prevent collapse as air travels into the lungs. So this means that nose breathing, and the myriad of postural effects that go with it, directly impact one’s metabolism and hormones.
There is also a neurological connection between the two as the pharynx and the thyroid are both innervated by the vagus nerve. Activity of the pharyngeal muscles, along with other muscles of the vagus nerve, goes on to influence the activity of the thyroid gland.
This may not mean much for a single, or few breaths, but imagine what happens over the course of days, weeks, months, and years. If doing something as simple as breathing through your nose can cause your thyroid to secrete its hormones, think of what the rest of what good posture or bodily mechanics can do.
Fluid Flow & Nutrient Delivery
Movement is meant to accomplish multiple things at once as part of the ingenious design of living beings. The efficiency and symmetry of how you move ends up influencing how effectively you pump blood, drain lymph, circulate cerebrospinal fluid, mobilize food in the gut, and more.
Every time you breathe or take a step you are facilitating all of these processes simultaneously. Again, how well you move directly impacts how efficiently your cells are able take in glucose/oxygen, how well your gut can extract nutrition from its contents, and how effectively the brain can drain toxic metabolites that threaten its existence.
As movement becomes less efficient (and effective), so do all these other processes. Blood fails to get where it needs to when it needs to, food lingers in the intestines too long and rots (generating endotoxin), and the brain begins to accumulate waste which subjects it to unnecessary stress.
How do you expect your metabolism and hormones to be that of a healthy organism if this is the case? Whatever you end up doing to try to resurrect your metabolism and steroids will end up being an uphill battle that you may never win until these things are addressed.
Respiratory Capacity
Along with improved blood, lymph, and CSF flow, good body posture and mechanics are also essential for maximizing respiration. This includes breathing through the nose, maintaining airway patency, and allowing the lungs to expand to their desired maximum. Should any of these be limited, so too will breathing and eventually metabolism.
The more air you are able to take in the more potential oxygen is able to be used to fan the flames of your metabolism. In addition, improved breathing mechanics lend to retaining CO2 better. Though thought of as a “waste” product, CO2 is necessary to deliver oxygen into cells from the blood (Bohr Effect). Too little CO2 and O2 remains bound to hemoglobin in red blood cells.
To compensate for a lack of, or inefficient breathing, one will hyperventilate to increase oxygen intake. This also accelerates the loss of CO2 and shifts cells toward glycolysis and away from oxidative (mitochondrial) metabolism. For short periods of time this helps cope with stress but if this becomes a reality, metabolism suffers and one’s hormonal profile is one of stress and survival.
Hyperventilation is also part of the overall sympathetic nervous system’s response to stress. As mentioned before, this can skew hormones/metabolism by prioritizing survival in the now versus thriving in the future. The thyroid is deprioritized and sex steroids (progesterone, androgens) are put aside in favor of stress hormones (corticoids/estrogens). While your diet and environment can certainly have an effect on these things, this can be triggered from chronic breathing habits as well.
Yes, how you move, stand, and breathe can all have a substantial impact on your metabolism and eventually your hormonal profile. These aren’t meant to be exclusive pursuits, but two sides of the same coin. If you’d like to improve one you should also focus on the other as this will yield more sustainable and complete results.
Instead of looking for that next supplement or dietary change, why not look at how you are moving, breathing, and otherwise existing at every moment in time? Many of the ways of which you go about doing this are free and readily accessible, requiring no one but yourself.
Here are some relevant articles on the topic of “posture” and body mechanics:
The Spinal Engine
Vertebrates are defined by their spine, a centralized column of nerve and connective tissue encased within segmented bones. While the first vertebrates lacked bones, they still possessed a “notochord” of similar function. This not only served as a central highway of the nervous system but also as an attachment for muscles and connective tissue.
How the Eyes Shape Posture
Land-dwelling vertebrates are tasked with simultaneously propelling themselves while supporting against the constant force of gravity. This only became more of a challenge when humans started walking primarily on two legs --combined with the further growth of the cranium. At any given point in time, whether still or in motion, the spine and skull must w…
Ancestral Breathing
Respiration, the procurement of oxygen for cellular metabolism, is a requirement for all vertebrates. The first of these used gills, specialized fan-like organs filled with blood vessels for gas exchange. As vertebrates moved onto land, and gills became lungs, much of the anatomy behind this process changed. However, given that terrestrial vertebrates a…