Did you know that which side you chew on more or if you have a missing tooth can cause an imbalance throughout your musculoskeletal system? Walking, standing, sitting, and even staring at your mobile phone can put a significant strain on your body, even greater than what a fitness workout can cause. What is behind the higher shoulder and the feeling that one of your legs is “shorter”? The answer to this question is provided by posturology – the science of posture. Posture is determined by the condition/balance of muscles and fascia and joint mobility. What should people know about posture and why posture is unique for each person, like a fingerprint? The answer to these and other questions is provided by Dr. Paolo Zavarella – founder of A.I.R.O.P., professor of posturology and osteopathy at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata“ and the University of Pisa. He conducts training courses in Bulgaria.
Dr. Zavarella, what is the most important thing that people in everyday life need to know about posturology?
Thank you for the question. I believe that the increasing dissemination of knowledge about posturology can help people's health.
It's all about posture! Posture is our way of resisting gravity - whether sitting or standing. The positions we have in sports, work, daily life, rhythmic movements that seem involuntary to us such as chewing, walking, running. All this is organized on the basis of information that our body learns from the senses.
In practice, there is no ideal posture that is the same for everyone. There is one posture for a particular person that is the best for him. It is achieved as a result of who he is and what he does.
Is it correct to say that the posture of each person is unique like a fingerprint?
Yes, just like a fingerprint. We can indeed talk about a fingerprint of posture. Each person can achieve the best posture for themselves. It is this posture that brings and maintains good health. In fact, it is a mirror of health.
How can a person understand which posture is the most correct for him?
When there is some discomfort – pain, restriction of movement (turns well to the right, but there is tension or pain on the left), or feels that he chews only on the right side and very rarely on the left side. All this may seem very banal and insignificant, but it is already a serious sign that there are some limitations in the posture. This can make a person seek a posture check, an analysis, to identify the problem.
That is why we have trained, both in Italy and now in Bulgaria, experts in posturology. They can consult children, the elderly, athletes.
Each activity predisposes a certain position of the muscles. There are specific postures depending on the specific activities that each person performs. For example, activities of musicians, singers, dentists. The dentist's position is always twisted. The violinist's hand is always stretched.
All these forced asymmetrical postures can cause dysfunction. At first, small ones with a little pain. Then this can lead to asymmetry of the body or, as we say, disharmony of posture. Then serious deviations that can lead to arthrosis follow.
Posturology should be the first. It is like prevention before the damage has become orthopedic or neurological. That is why a posture examination is important because it can prevent many future diseases. The examination is performed by a posturologist - a person who sees the posture as a whole, before the patient has any complaints. An orthopedist, for example, works specialized on a certain disorder that is discovered by the posturologist.
Posturology is a science that builds on medical education. Once the doctor finds out what the problem is at the posturological level, he can treat it in the specialized field - orthopedist, dentist, rehabilitators, psychologists.
As experts, we find where the problem is and, by specialty, we redirect it to the one who works in the given field.
You gave chewing as an example. All people chew. What are the negative consequences on the human body when chewing only on one side or the other?
Before I explain this, I will give a simple tip with which a person can assess their posture. For example, stand straight in front of a mirror without shoes, observe the height of their shoulders in a relaxed state. If one shoulder is higher than the other - even if there is no pain, this is already evidence of a certain adaptation. That is, their body shows that it is adapting something and we need to find what the problem is for which it is being corrected.
He can open his mouth in front of the mirror and see if the movement is central or smooth, whether the chin moves along an axis in the center, straight vertically or there is a deviation, deviation. This is also a sign that the skull-mandible system has a problem and is adapting. Even if there is no pain yet, it is already clear that there is a dysfunction of the posture.
The other test is to walk in a corridor again without shoes - 2-3 meters, and observe whether his feet are parallel, are they correctly positioned. If the load when touching the ground is unbalanced and a person presses more on one foot or the other, this provides important information about the so-called “third kinematic chain“. It includes the pelvis and lower limbs.
We can just stay like this, close our eyes and start marching in place with our eyes closed, slightly lifting our feet. Let's count 30-40-50 steps in our head, open our eyes and if we find that our position has changed, that we have turned too far to the left or are walking forward or backward, then we need to control our posture. Because this already shows that the muscles on one side are more tense than those on the other.
There are simple exercises through which we can see if our posture is correct or if correction is necessary.
Going back to your question, there are many people who, without even realizing it, are used to chewing only on one side because they are uncomfortable on the other side, be it due to a missing tooth or some other problem. This small asymmetry throws off the entire posture, because the lower jaw joint is the first movable joint in the body. It is the leader of all the joints below. It is even higher than the cervical joints. It is also controlled by muscles. Chewing on only one side means that on that side all the muscles become stiffer, tighter and shorter. On the other side, they will be longer and more stretched. And posture is always looking for compensation. These muscles that are down, that go down from the lower jaw to the neck, will look for a way to compensate, lifting the shoulder, bringing it forward. They will lead to dysfunction of the shoulder blade, of the collarbone, and this pattern from the skull down does not stop at the neck, but continues even further down - it involves the pelvis, which also tilts. It will involve the knee, the leg, to such an extent that it will affect the way we step on the ground.
Therefore, this one-sided chewing, which is not diagnosed, not treated, not evaluated, can lead to damage to the meniscus of the knee. It can lead to an ankle problem.
There is another type of laughter that occurs in the opposite order - ascending or from the bottom up. There may be distortion - a sprain or dislocation of the ankle or trauma from uncomfortable shoes. The shoes may be very beautiful, but they may be very traumatic and lead to dysfunction that starts from the bottom up. In this ascending scheme, the jaw joint will be the last and it will be at the level of adaptation. It can cause pain at all levels, even up in the jaw.
There is also a third scheme - mixed. In this case, the primary cause is not mechanical, but visceral, in the internal organs, endocrine, indigestion, chronic inflammation of the intestines, emotional, mental. We can say that this is due to dysfunction of the nervous-vegetative system and the muscles of the internal organs or those that are directly controlled by the psyche, such as the diaphragm. This is a scheme that pushes the body both up and down from the center.
The experts in posturology that we create here in Bulgaria with the help of the School of Posturology have tools with which they can immediately understand which of the three schemes is present in the patient. A series of adaptations follows, which we must influence. Therefore, we must be careful with regard to specialized medicine, because the same problem (ed. note: it is a clinical manifestation of the specialized profile of the temporomandibular joint) should be treated in two different ways - in a patient who is descending, i.e. where it is the root cause, or in a patient who is ascending, where it is a consequence. In fact, posturology helps us a lot to find the root cause of the problem.
How can a person take preventive measures to postpone the appearance of these deviations in the three patterns you mentioned until a later stage, because it is clear that the human body is designed in such a way that sooner or later these deviations will occur?
The best prevention of posture is the best prevention for health. It is a shadow of health. Posture is the external manifestation of health. A person in good health has a nice and harmonious posture. When we do a postural examination, posture is observed, but the goal is not necessarily to straighten it.
In practice, by observing posture, one can understand where health is lacking in the body. In order to prevent problems from occurring, to avoid them, we must eat well, avoid too heavy foods, and exercise regularly. It is not necessary to do specific activities - to walk, to move, to take time for our body to make it move. And it must be borne in mind that all our parts have a left and a right side - eyes, mouth, shoulders, legs, feet. The goal is to try to be in balance between left and right.
And last but not least, to be very careful about your thoughts! Too heavy thoughts - no, stress - no. All this closes the posture and creates problems.
In April 2026, a new training course for medical specialists begins at the School of Posturology of the Bulgarian Association of Posturology under the program of the Italian school Educam.