Ever find yourself having a good cry in the shower—partly because it's the only place you feel free enough to let go your feelings? Brittany Latham knows what that's like.

This 30-year-old photographer from Mobile, Alabama, decided to share an image of a woman crying in the shower on Instagram, captioning it with inspiring words that has hit such a chord, it's already racked up hundreds of thousands of views.

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“For the woman whose husband makes an ‘extra stop’ after work every evening,” she started the post. “For the woman who is mourning the loss of a pregnancy that nobody else knew about.”

Latham continued calling out other cry-worthy scenarios, like losing a job after staying home with a sick child, breaking up with a partner, or enduring unsuccessful IVF treatments. She made it clear that she understands the stress and heartache of these and similar situations.

“For the woman that lives with quiet anxiety because nobody understands what you could possibly be stressed out about,” she wrote. “For the woman that gives to her family all day everyday and just needs a break.”

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Latham ended her post with a message directly related to the photo. “For every single woman that cries in the shower so that nobody else can see. Because if you aren’t strong, nobody is. Just because the water washes your tears doesn’t mean that you don’t cry. I am you. I see you. I am with you, I cry with you.”

Her emotional post struck a nerve. Within days, it went viral on Facebook and has garnered nearly 400,000 reactions and more than 400,000 shares.

Latham tells Health that she was motivated by her own life and other women’s experiences. “The inspiration behind [this] was a collection of various things that I have experienced as a single mom, married mom, and mom of two babies lost to miscarriage,” she says. “I spend a lot of time with my friends and hear their struggles and I thought how resilient women must be sometimes. A lot of times we are the only backbone.”

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In more than 60,000 comments, people celebrated the beauty and power of her words and image. “Wow…I saw myself in many of these words and yes the sun did shine again on me,” one respondent wrote. “This is truth,” said another.

Latham told us that she was shocked her post connecting with so many strangers. “I write a lot of pieces and very few make it out of my journal, so I was just as shocked as anyone when this thing went viral,” she says.

You've heard that sitting too much just might kill you, mainly because the lack of movement translates into an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic conditions. To add insult to injury, it turns out that spending your day hunched over a computer also has major ramifications for your mental well-being.

The issue: Poor posture can put you in a lousy mood and make you feel more stressed and depressed.

"We're a very forward-leaning society—we drive forward, lean forward, slouch over our desks all day," says William Smith, an exercise physiologist in Morristown, New Jersey and co-author of Exercises for Perfect Posture. You probably spend a lot of time craning your neck over your smartphone, too.

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No evidence proves that poor posture directly causes serious problems like clinical depression and anxiety. But a number of studies have suggested that it may exacerbate the symptoms of these disorders. Even if your mental health is generally solid, there are good reasons to think that you'd be happier—and healthier—if you simply sat and stood up straighter.

Here are three ways improving your posture will improve your emotional health, and exactly how to do it so you begin scoring the benefits.

You'll feel happier and more energetic

"Over time, sustained slumped-forward posture creates unnecessary stress and strains your spine," says Steven D’Ambroso, PT, DPT a physical therapist with Professional Physical Therapy in New York. "That can make you feel heavy and achy, which leads to being tired and irritable."

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This isn't just a theory; research has actually verified the connection between poor posture and fatigue, especially in people who have depression. One study, published last year in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, found that patients with mild to moderate depression felt more alert after simply keeping their back and shoulders upright while sitting. They also reported less anxiety.

Another study, published in the journal Biofeedback, came to a similar conclusion: Participants who slouched while walking felt more depressed. When they shifted to a more upright position, their outlook and energy levels increased.

You'll get a confidence boost

When you want to project a confident and comfortable persona (like on a job interview or first date), your stance is key. "If you carry yourself in a certain way"—shoulders back, abdomen in, spine aligned—"it exudes confidence and an affable demeanor," says Smith. The converse is also true: Just picture a sullen teenager whose slouchy posture instantly conveys a sense of apathy.

Maintaining good posture won't only make you look more confident; research shows that you'll actually feel better about yourself. A study in Health Psychology found that people who feel stressed can kick their negative mood and even boost their self-esteem by sitting upright…

Back fat, bra bulge … whatever you call it, it’s frustratingly stubborn. What's more: Your desk job can actually mess with your efforts to sculpt your rear view, says Ideen Chelengar, a master instructor and Tier 3+ trainer at Equinox Sports Club Boston. That's because when you sit hunched over all day, the way your shoulder blades function during exercise can change—and it may become even tougher to target your upper-middle back. Read: Ugh.

Of course, even if you were targeting those muscles properly, exercise alone wouldn't blast away back fat: “In reality, losing fat comes down to your diet more than exercise,” Chelengar points out. But a challenging fitness routine—one that combines cardio and resistance training—plays a key role as well. And the benefits of back workouts go way beyond weight loss.

For starters, training your back the right way can actually help combat "computer posture." It can also help balance out your body, Chelengar adds, since "[w]e tend to use our shoulders and chest muscles more often than our back muscles."

So next time you hit the gym, try these eight moves and start building up strength in those hard-to-tone spots.

Thoracic Spine Extension

Start with knees on a pad, 1 to 2 feet away from a bench. Prop elbows on the bench. Sit back into hips (similar to how you would in Child’s Pose). With elbows propped and hips bent, drive chest toward ground. From here, keeping chest down, lift head up as high as possible. Then tuck chin down as though trying to lengthen neck. While keeping chest down, drive back of neck toward ceiling. You should feel this in middle of back, between shoulder blades. You may also feel some tightness through upper arm and armpits. Hold for 30 to 60 seconds.

Why it works: When you live your days hunched, your shoulders don’t function as they should, making it tricky to target that lower trap and rhomboid area everyone wants to tone, says Chelengar. The first step to hitting those areas? Teaching your body how to extend from the thoracic spine and not the lumbar spine, he says. This move does that.

Cross Band

Start on back with arms up and hips, knees, and ankles at 90 degrees. Cross a resistance band around soles of feet so that right arm is pulling at left foot and vice versa. Start by reaching right arm as far as possible overhead. While you reach, make sure your legs stay still, ribs stay down, and that subtle arch in low back is unchanged. Bring right arm back to center. Switch sides. Complete 2 sets of 15 to 25 reps.

Why it works: "Maintaining proper posture is key to getting the middle-back muscles involved, and that means getting your core to participate," says Chelengar. "This is a great way to teach your body the relationship between your arms and spine."

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Back-to-Wall Band Vertical Retraction

Pull band lightly apart, maintain that tension…