The Importance of Correct Posture
Last updated on March 21, 2023
Have a look around. Look at your kids, your workmates, and even strangers on the street. Take a look in the mirror. What do you notice? Are you, or the people you’re looking at, standing up straight? Do most people have good strong posture? The answer is a most resounding NO.
Most people in western societies spend an inordinate amount of time hunched over smartphones, slouching at a work desk, or even stretching their head forward to read an improperly placed computer monitor.
The majority of us have lost much of our core strength due to a sedentary lifestyle our ability to hold an upright posture is difficult and may even be painful. As your posture begins to degenerate you will lose your range of mobility due to scar tissue development and muscular contracture. Over time these unnatural stressors on the body (due to altered biomechanics or movement patterns) will cause your body to become out of alignment (what we call subluxation) and the joints/bones to break down. Physical therapy may help address these issues by improving core strength, posture, and mobility through targeted exercises and techniques.
Think about this. Your head weighs about as much as a bowling ball. If you were holding a bowling ball directly over your shoulder you could probably hold it all day… But what if you stretch your arm out and held it directly in front of you? That bowling ball would feel exponentially heavier.
Now, look at your kids, playing on their smartphones. What is happening to the placement of their heads?
Roger Sperry, PhD (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1981) discovered that 90% of the brain’s activity is used to balance your body within the gravitational field of the earth. If your body is mechanically distorted, it will affect the other 10% of the brain’s activity, which controls all the other body functions such as breathing, digestion and cognition.
As your posture declines it begins with soft tissue changes and progresses through changes in the bone. These changes are often slow and progressive. They can be corrected but depending on the length of time they’ve been there and the degree of osseous change will determine the possible outcome, as well as the compliance.
We use a 3 legged stool approach to correcting these types of concerns. The first is to help people realise what habits they have that have contributed to this posture, and help them to stop doing them. Then if necessary we’ll adjust any region of their spine where restriction and scar tissue are preventing proper moment or neurological signalling to the brain (more on this in an upcoming blog). And the 3rd leg of the stool is teaching spinal hygiene exercises to help correct and strengthen the spine.
Your posture is a window to your Health.
Guard it, maintain it and work on it daily.
Find out how Ripple Chiropractic can help improve your posture, alleviate lower back pain, and promote overall wellness through chiropractic treatments.
