“Don’t slouch.” “Sit up straight.” “Keep your shoulders back.”
As a child, you probably heard some form of those commands once or a thousand times. At the time, they were just words adults liked to say. Now that yu’re older they hold a much deeper meaning. Bad posture doesn’t just make you look sad and pathetic; it affects your health. It affects you in ways that you don’t even know about. If you want to fix these problems below try correcting your posture.
Bad posture is an epidemic in the U.S. affecting millions of individuals. It’s not a just simple or unimportant matter. Bad posture causes pain and you don’t enjoy life as much. It causes more mental and physical complications than most people know and can have disastrous effects on your long-term health.
5 Negative Effects of Poor Posture
1. Changes The Shape of Your Spine for the Worse!
Poor posture changes the alignment of your spine, putting pressure on areas that don’t need it. In your natural, healthy state, your spine has a certain curve to its shape. But after you spend years slumping at your desk and standing with bad posture, the natural curves of your spine are lost. In fact, the excessive strain can become so bad that it wears your spine out! It causes degenerative discs and arthritis! It can cause your bones to erode. These changes cause long-term pain and discomfort. The new alignment can even cause you to shrink in size as you get older.
Loss of Height caused by poor posture
2. It Worsens Depression and Stress
As stated earlier, bad posture doesn’t just make you look sad it can actually make you feel sad. A study at San Francisco State University discovered that students who slouched while they walked had increased feelings of depression and stress compared to those who didn’t
. A similar study at Harvard revealed that the way you carry yourself, with good or bad posture, can affect how you feel. For example, people with good posture saw a rise in testosterone, giving them a sense of power and control. They also had a decrease in cortisol, the stress hormone. Try standing with good posture and see if you feel a better sense of control and your stress goes down. Try it and see!
3. Poor posture causes Digestive Troubles
Bad posture doesn’t just affect your spine; it also affects your innards. It compresses your organs together and they can’t function properly. Sitting and standing slumped over constricts your intestines, which can make digestion uncomfortable and contribute to issues such as acid reflux and hiatal hernias.
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Even more surprising, bad posture can impact your metabolism causing you to gain weight and to develop a belly pouch and larger bottom. Sitting hunched over in a chair after you eat can keep the food you just ate from being properly passed through the gut. This will cause gas to build up, resulting in bloating which can be painful or uncomfortable. Think about this – do you ever get bloated and gassy after eating? Being bloated will often result in stomach distension as well; a condition which causes your stomach to stick out further than it normally would.
4. Poor posture increases Pain
I want to get something out of the way. This is for those of you living in pain… Just because youlive in pain doesn’t mean that pain is normal. Okay? If something hurts it then it is inflammed. There is inflammation there. Inflammation causes pain. If you live with inflammation then the problem is getting worse. Pain isn’t normal. Some people think living in pain is normal. It is not. To get rid of the pain you need to get rid of the inflammation.
When your body isn’t in alignment it isn’t happy, and the way your body tells you its unhappiness is through pain. In fact, bad posture usually leads to chronic back pain and spinal degeneration. The reason why is because poor posture increases strain on your back muscles, bones, and other parts of your body. Bad posture can even cause pain throughout other parts of your body including your hips, shoulders, and neck, leading to tension headaches. Yes, your posture could be causing your headaches.
Imagine that! Headaches caused by poor posture!
Neck pain, back pain, headaches are the most common reasons people think to see a chiropractor.
One way I maintain my health is using chiropractic adjustments at least monthly to maintain my lifestyle. I use the chiropractic lifestyle to keep myself nice and limber. I don’t want to be stiff and achy, do you?
I need chiropractic in my life. If you’re reading this message then you obviously do too.
What are you waiting for? Call us to start today. Better yet, call us right now!
5. Poor posture can cause Heart and Lung disease
Just as slouching hurts your digestive tract, it also hurts your lungs and heart. An Australian study on bad posture found that individuals who sat all day slumped over their desks had a shorter life expectancy and increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
Poor posture compresses the heart, keeping it from beating easily. Poor posture compresses the lungs, keeping people from taking in a full breath. If you can’t get ennough oxygen into your body, and your heart can’t pump it properly anyways, you are in trouble.
Part of that increased risk could be because bad posture also restricts blood and oxygen flow, making it more difficult to breathe, speak, and engage in physical exercise.
People with sleep apnea are tired all the time because of lack of oxygen to the brain. If we aren’t breathing as often because our posture compresses us too much then we are going without oxygen every day. This about what happens when we don’t get enough oxygen to the body. It doesn’t work very well. We can get slow with brain fog. We don’t have enough energy. Could your posture be contributing to this? What are you going to do to correct it?
5 Tips to Improve Your Posture
1. Strengthen Your Back Muscles
If you want to get rid of your bad posture, first, you need to make it easier to stand and sit up straight. There are a few simple exercises you can do to improve your back muscles. They include squats with weights, lunges, and shoulder rolls. Doing these exercises a few times a week can make it easier to keep the correct posture.
2. Train Yourself in Good Posture
For most individuals, good posture doesn’t come naturally. That’s why you need to train yourself to sit and stand appropriately. If you honestly want to improve your posture you can do it. It’s all up to you to fix your problem. I can show you how to do it, but it’s all up to you to actually fix your problem yourself.
One way to accomplish this is by simply stretching backwards every day.
3. Stand Up Often
It’s easier to have good posture when you’re standing. Take regular breaks throughout the day to stand up and walk around your office.
4. Fix Your Chairs
Most people never even think about taking the time to fix that office chair. Even if the chair comes with the job you actually have to sit in it. Since you most often have bad posture when you sit, make it easier on your body to correct the problem by investing in a chair that fits. Or maybe just fix the one you have. For your office, invest in an ergonomic chair, keyboard, and mouse. Likewise, when you are driving in your car, adjust your seat so your headrest is in the middle of your head and so your head is not more than 4 inches away from the seat.
5. Stretch
When you live your life with bad posture, not only do you shorten your spine, you shorten your muscles. Stretching can help lengthen your muscles back to their natural state while also helping you to open up your body, so your organs get the oxygen they need.
If you are concerned about your posture affecting your health then call and make an appointment to discuss your issues.
We will examine your posture and your spine. We will be looking for areas of tension. We have a treatment plan for posture correction and we will immediately start working to correct your problem areas.