I have been trying something new for only a few days now, but I am so excited about the results I am getting that I wanted to share!
For at least 15 years I have been a sloucher, hunching my shoulders forward. Some video of me on a vacation about 8 years ago made me want to change because I literally looked like a hunchback. So ever since I have been trying to improve, be more mindful, and stretch. I have made improvements, but not as much as I want and I still have the tendency to slouch when I am tired.
Recently, I remembered a tip that a yoga instructor gave me, that if you catch yourself standing on one leg, then shift your weight to stand on the other leg for a while to balance it out, even though the ideal is to balance evenly on both legs. And I had the epiphany that since I have been slouched forward for 15 years, that if I want to even out and achieve good posture, I should try slouching backwards.
Recently I have been adopting posture #2 in the above picture whenever I am feeling tired and wanting to slouch or if I catch myself in posture #1. And the results are amazing! I feel like my brain is being rewired, so many attitudes and mannerisms that I took for granted are coming to my conscious attention. For instance, I found that I have a tendency to flinch into a more hunched position when a person approaches. Can't do this with posture #2! I feel like an idiot walking around with my chest thrust forward, but it is really teaching me something about different ways of projecting myself through my body language. When I do stand straight, I feel straighter and more even than before.
The downside is that my back is hurting in all new places, but my back was hurting with my old posture as well, just in a more familiar way. I'll try to post an update in a month or two with more results.