What Does Posture Have To Do with Breathing & Sleeping Well?

What Does Posture Have To Do with Breathing & Sleeping Well?

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Hello and welcome to another episode. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Bennett. I'm here with Sandy Hughes today.

Welcome, Sandy.
Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Some people you meet in your life are so driven by a passion born from a genuine desire to help others, and Sandy is one of those people. I brought her on today because she has a unique expertise in posture, strength conditioning, and related health practices. I want her to share her background before we dive into the connections between these areas.

Posture is my passion. It really is. It hasn't always been that way, but looking back, I’ve always been fascinated by human movement. I’ve always observed people, but I never understood why—until now.

I'm a mother of five children, and like most parents, my motivation has always been to help them. This journey started when Chloe, my only daughter, fractured her spine in gymnastics at age 13. Even though the bones healed, her pain remained. We spent two years going to specialists, getting scans—no one could explain why she was still in pain.

One day, I looked at her structure. Gymnasts tend to overdevelop their upper body and quads, which pulls on the spine and tilts the pelvis forward, creating compression. When we stopped using the quads excessively and started engaging the glutes and lower abdominals, her spine decompressed. Within six weeks, her pain was gone.

That lit a fire in me. I started studying posture and got certified. Chloe is still my little sidekick—we study and work together. She's now happily married, healthy, and still pain-free.

That's a fascinating story. If you hadn’t intervened, she might’ve ended up on long-term pain medications or in a cycle of chronic discomfort.

Exactly. That was often the recommended solution—pain medication. But especially at her age, that wasn’t an option for us.

Children can be our greatest motivators. What a mom will do for her child is amazing.

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The Power of Posture in Sleep and Healing

In my world, people often come in saying, “I feel so fatigued,” or “I wake up feeling unrested.” A big reason is that they’re in pain. Injuries prevent their brain from relaxing enough to enter deep, healing sleep. What you did for your daughter—relieving her pain—also enabled her to sleep and truly rest.

Yes, and I think we’re so afraid of pain sometimes. But pain is the body’s way of communicating. If we can calm down and treat it like a puzzle to solve, we can often find the cause and fix it.

When you think of posture in terms of architecture, it's like constructing a building. You start with the structure, then install the internal systems. If the building is twisted, everything gets pinched. That analogy applies to the body too. Have you seen improvements in overall health just by correcting posture?

Absolutely. The body is an integrated system. We’re connected from head to toe through fascia—a tissue network with seven times more nerve endings than any other. It's sensitive and malleable. Often, widespread pain is a result of how we carry ourselves. Posture is the foundation for movement. If we don’t build that foundation correctly, the entire system suffers.

We often focus on the pelvis because it’s the base of support. The body will always prioritize protecting the organs and spine. It’ll contort and compensate—sometimes in damaging ways—just to survive.

That’s a powerful insight. In my field, we talk about how the body compensates to open the airway. Posture shifts, the head tilts back, the jaw drops—all to allow breathing. If we want people to heal, we must address sleep, breathing, and posture together.

Exactly.

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Breathing Is Central to Postural Health

So breath is probably the most important component in posture. The body’s number one priority is survival. If we don't breathe, we don’t survive. The moment breathing is restricted, the body panics. Poor posture restricts breathing very quickly.

Stress causes shallow breathing. Combine that with modern lifestyles—sitting all day, looking at screens, jobs that shorten hip flexors and round the shoulders—and we’ve created a culture of collapsed diaphragms and compromised breath.

Older adults often show this deterioration. Their heads are extended, shoulders hunched, spines curved. It’s just gravity over time. But gravity is a literal weight we can resist—if we choose to. If you sit upright, use your muscles instead of bones, you’ll develop a strong core without ever setting foot in a gym. It’s a paradigm shift.

The gaming generation today is going to grow old with severe postural issues. Will that shorten their lifespan?

Absolutely. It will shorten both lifespan and quality of life.

And it all connects back to how we treat our systems—especially the airway.

Exactly. The airway is vital. I love what you do, helping people breathe and sleep better. That foundation is critical. We must teach our children to use their bodies properly, to move intentionally, and to breathe deeply.

I remember a client—a 63-year-old lawyer with migraines and neck pain. After addressing her airway and posture, she finally felt well enough to fulfill her dream of going on a mission with her husband.

Yes! When you feel better, you naturally want to serve, to be productive. But when you’re in pain, all you can think about is “I don’t feel good.” That’s why helping youth understand posture is so important. Their heads are like bowling balls—if they tilt forward, the muscles get overworked and fatigue sets in. We need to teach them to carry themselves with intention.

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Posture, Airway, and Long-Term Wellbeing

As a dentist who now specializes in airway, sleep, and pain treatment, I’ve come to realize that most people are underdeveloped in their face and mouth area. In dental school, we were only taught to look for space for teeth and disease in the gums or teeth—nothing about the implications of a crowded mouth on the airway.

A crowded mouth means a crowded airway, and a crowded airway results in postural compensations—especially at night. These distortions create injuries throughout the body, and when your sleep and breathing are poor, your body never truly repairs. That contributes to a shorter lifespan and chronic illnesses like hypertension and diabetes.

The synergy between what we’re discussing—posture, airway, and the body’s structure—creates a medical model that makes true healing possible.

Definitely. If someone comes to me for posture work and practices the exercises I teach during the day, but then goes to sleep and collapses their airway at night, they undo all that hard work. Sleep is when our metabolism is focused on repair. If your body is stuck in fight-or-flight mode due to poor breathing, it won’t enter the healing state.

That’s the beauty of a combined approach—optimizing posture during the day and breathing during the night. The nervous system calms, and true regeneration begins.

Exactly. And when you stay in fight-or-flight because of airway issues or injury signals, blood flow is redirected away from vital systems like digestion and reproduction. That’s why people with chronic posture or breathing problems often also deal with digestive disorders and hormonal imbalances.

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A Case Study: Crohn’s Disease and Sleep Apnea

One of our patients, Brett—a financial advisor—dealt with Crohn’s disease for 50 years. After rounds of steroids, his GI doctor was preparing to surgically remove part of his colon. But Brett came to us, and we screened him for sleep apnea. Sure enough, he had it.

He couldn’t tolerate CPAP, so we fitted him with an oral appliance. Nine months later, he returned beaming—his GI doctor had moved him to a three-year recall instead of biannual scopes. That’s what happens when you get to the root cause: the nervous system calms, the digestive system heals, and the body starts working the way it should.

And it makes perfect sense. Chronic stress raises cortisol, which increases inflammation. When you stop triggering the fight-or-flight response every night, inflammation reduces. That alone helps the entire system function better.

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Simple Postural Exercises for Everyday Health

Let’s talk about how people can protect and improve their posture throughout the day—especially in a tech-driven world. What’s your advice for building healthy posture habits?

Start with awareness. Here’s a simple exercise:
Lie flat on the floor in a supine position with your knees bent. Notice the small arch in your lower back. Now rotate your pelvis to flatten that arch and lengthen your spine. Relax your shoulders without forcing them back—just open your chest and breathe.

Start with belly breathing. Place a hand on your stomach and slowly push it out as you inhale. Let the air out and pull the navel in. Breathe in again—slowly and deeply—and out. Count your breaths if you like: inhale for four, exhale for ten. This activates your parasympathetic nervous system and calms your stress response. It’s also a great way to prepare for sleep.

Next, shift to ribcage breathing. Put your hands on your ribcage and breathe so your ribs expand outward, not your belly. This engages the diaphragm and supports your core—perfect for movement and lifting. It's how you should breathe during activity.

That’s a critical distinction. Belly breathing for rest and ribcage breathing for movement. And activating the vagus nerve through diaphragmatic breathing helps you relax, digest, and fall asleep.

Exactly. And if you want to go deeper into that state, you can even try humming. Just like cats purr to relax, we can use gentle sounds to further calm the nervous system.

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Sitting and Standing with Intention

Let’s move to seated posture. What can we do during the workday to support our posture?

Start by moving away from the back of your chair. Most chairs aren’t designed with spinal health in mind. Sit slightly forward and use your muscles to stay upright. Your sacrum should point down—not flare back. Pull your navel in slightly and lift your chest. Think of a string attached to the top of your head, gently lifting your spine.

This will feel tiring at first. But over time, your core strengthens and this posture becomes natural. Practice it during daily activities—driving, working, even attending events. Sit with purpose. Try holding it until the next stop sign, then relax and reset.

Standing posture is similar. Check where you carry your weight—it’s often in the toes. Shift it to your heels. Keep your knees soft, not locked. Keep your sacrum pointing straight down and your navel gently engaged. Tuck your chin slightly and keep your shoulders relaxed and wide.

This is simple but powerful. And posture affects more than just our muscles—it impacts how we feel emotionally.

Yes! That’s what I love most. When you stand tall, your brain gets the message: “I’m confident.” I tell my kids all the time—move like you want to feel. If you slump, your brain interprets that as stress. But if you hold yourself upright, your brain starts to believe it. You feel better emotionally, not just physically.

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Sleep Posture and Optimizing Your Nighttime Routine

You’ve talked a lot about posture during the day—but let’s not forget nighttime posture. How important is sleep position in maintaining all this work we do while awake?

It’s everything. If you do all the right things during the day but collapse your airway and compress your spine during sleep, you're undoing the progress. Your body heals at night. If you sleep in poor posture, you repair in poor posture.

Be very aware of your spine alignment when you sleep. On your back? Place a pillow under your knees to reduce lower back pressure. On your side? Use a pillow between your knees and make sure one shoulder isn’t collapsing beneath you. You want to maintain airway openness and spinal alignment all night long.

Great point. Because growth hormone is released during deep sleep, and that's when the body builds tissue, including bone and muscle. So we want the body to be in proper position during that time.

Exactly. You’re either repairing in alignment or misalignment. And a big part of this is making sure the airway is open—clearing the nose, using nasal support like Breathe Right strips, and treating snoring or sleep apnea with professional help.

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A Holistic Model: Airway, Posture, Nutrition, and Sleep

When we combine what you’ve shared with what I do in airway treatment, the outcome is a truly comprehensive model of health:

• We optimize posture to align the body and open the airway.
• We train the breath for relaxation and strength.
• We use nutrition to reduce inflammation and support cellular healing.
• We treat sleep disorders to ensure nightly repair.

It’s a total package—and it’s simple, sustainable, and effective.

Definitely. I have an eBook coming out that focuses on plant-based nutrition for families. It teaches how to reduce inflammation and transition into nutrient-dense eating, even on a budget. That, combined with posture work and breathwork, really gives people the tools to heal.

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Learn More from Sandy Hughes

Where can people find more of your resources or work with you directly?

They can visit my website at elibriumwellness.com. That’s E-L-I-B-R-I-U-M wellness dot com. In just a week or so, the site will have access to the eBook, contact info, and other helpful tools.

I’m also on social media at Sandy Ray Hughes, where I occasionally share insights on posture, wellness, and family-friendly strategies to support healing.

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Final Thoughts: Unleashing the Healing Power of Sleep

As we close, I want to remind our listeners that sleep posture matters. Clear your airway before bed, treat your snoring or apnea, and remember—sleep is where your body rebuilds. If you want to truly heal, don’t let your efforts stop when your head hits the pillow.

Fix your breathing. Fix your alignment. Fix your nutrition. Then let sleep unleash your body’s natural healing power.

This has been an incredible conversation, Sandy. Your perspective as a wellness expert and a mom adds so much depth. We need to work together more often.

Thank you! I’d love that. This message needs to get out to more families.

To all our listeners—at your next family gathering, take a look around. Notice posture. Ask about headaches, sleep, and digestive issues. Look inside mouths. Crowded mouths mean crowded airways, and those create a ripple effect on health.

And if your dentist or physician isn’t yet trained in these principles, share this podcast. Invite them to learn more. Because every person deserves the opportunity to live freely—breathing clearly, sleeping soundly, and thriving with strength.

Until next time, stay well—and keep unleashing the healing power of sleep.

For more information on airway-centered dental solutions, visit vivoslife.com. To find a local provider trained in sleep and airway wellness, search through the Vivos Provider Network.

For detailed support in posture, breath, and family wellness, visit elibriumwellness.com.

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