Why “Trying” to Have Good Posture Fails
(And the 60-Second “Eyes on the Back of Your Head” Fix)
Since 2015, I’ve worked with hundreds of clients who spend their days at desks. They almost all say the same thing:
“I try to sit up straight… but I just end up feeling tight, tired, and annoyed.”
Most people treat posture like a muscular battle — something you have to hold through willpower. Others assume the fix is external: a standing desk, a new chair, a better setup.
But after a decade of practice, I’ve seen the same pattern over and over:
The problem usually isn’t strength or furniture.
It’s orientation.
The Real Problem: The “Visual Pull”
When you stare at a screen for hours, your world collapses forward.
Your eyes reach toward the pixels.
Your attention follows.
And your physical structure comes along for the ride.
Over time, this constant forward pull shifts the head slightly off its natural axis. The neck and shoulders then step in to “hold you together,” which is why they feel fried by 3pm — even on days that aren’t particularly stressful.
Left unaddressed, this pattern usually becomes the new normal — not something that fixes itself.
I see this weekly in my practice: people lose any real sense of the space behind them, so the neck becomes a stabilizer instead of a mover.
Somatic educator Mary Bond describes this as losing our three-dimensional sense of ourselves in space — and I see this constantly with desk workers. When awareness shrinks to what’s directly in front of us, the nervous system often creates tension just to feel stable in a world that feels collapsed.
Not because you’re stressed.
Because your body doesn’t know where it is.
The 60-Second “Eyes on the Back of Your Head” Reset
This is a simple re-orientation exercise I use to help clients decouple head movement from the aggressive pull of the eyes.
Try this right now at your desk.
1. The Baseline
Turn your head slowly from side to side.
Don’t fix anything. Just notice the quality of the movement. How does it feel?
There’s no right or wrong here — you’re just noticing.
2. The Shift
First, use your hand to feel the back of your head and neck.
Now, close your eyes. Imagine you have a pair of eyes on the back of your head.
Keeping your eyes closed, turn your head as if you’re gently looking left and right behind you with those back eyes.
3. The Result
Notice the quality of the movement. Does it feel different than before?
Most people notice the difference immediately.
The movement feels smoother.
The head feels lighter.
The neck stops gripping to control the turn.
That’s not stretching.
That’s orientation.
It’s not a permanent fix — but it’s a quick way to remind your nervous system that you have space behind you again.
Why This Works
Good posture isn’t something you do.
It’s something that emerges when your body knows where it is in space.
With proper orientation, support stops coming from tension and starts coming from balance.
This is the foundation of Structural Integration — not forcing alignment, but restoring your relationship with gravity so effort is no longer required.
The Next Step
If you’re a desk worker who feels collapsed, tight, or exhausted from constantly “trying” to have good posture, this is exactly the pattern we address in Structural Integration.
I work with a small number of clients at a time to restore orientation, ease, and efficiency—without forcing or correction.
You can book a 15-minute phone consult and we’ll see whether this work is appropriate for what you’re dealing with.