Health-E-News March 2017
empowering you to optimal health

 

If you observe the way people carry themselves these days, having proper posture seems to be a thing of the past. We have all been told by our parents or grandparents at one point to “sit up straight”, which would inevitably elicit eye rolls, further slouching, or other forms of protest. But looking back, did they have it right?

Image someone with good posture. I’m guessing you are picturing a person standing tall, with their chest raised, head held high, looking strong and ready to take on the world. When we have proper alignment the interplay with our skeleton, muscles, ligaments, tendons, and fascia work together to create smooth and pain free motion. Not only does our body feel and function optimally, we also are able to think more clearly and go about our day with more confidence. When our body is out of alignment in one area everything must shift in order to adapt to the new imbalance. These shifts produce stress on our mind and body causing pain, injury, dysfunction, and degeneration if not address properly (1).

Common forms of postural misalignment, exasperated by prolonged sitting and inactivity, are called the upper and lower cross syndromes. Go to any local coffee shop and you will see the evidence clear as day in the way people carry their head forward, jutting their chin, and rounding their shoulders up and forward with a slouched back. This position over time will lead to tight muscles in the neck, shoulders, and upper back and can lead to conditions like headaches, carpel tunnel syndrome, chronic fatigue, and shoulder pain (2). Lower cross syndrome arises when the hip flexors and low back muscles become chronically tight along with weak or disengaged muscles in the glutes and core. This imbalance tilts the pelvis forward and commonly leads to low back pain, disc injury, and knee pain.

So turns out grandma was right: we do need to pay attention to our posture and re-learn how to maintain body alignment awareness. Like most good things this takes time and patience to identify areas of misalignment and work to regain balance in the joints and soft tissues. There are many ways to improve your posture and often times they are best done in some combination: specific posture exercises, a regular yoga practice, chiropractic adjustments, bodywork, myofascial release therapy, foam rolling, etc. In a study on headaches it was shown that by simply increasing the endurance of the deep muscles in the front the neck there was a 50% or greater reduction in headache days in participants with chronic tension-type headache. (3). It has also been shown that slouching or rounding your upper back contributes to headaches thereby a series of stretching and strengthening exercises can help to reduce the symptoms and pain (1).

There are many things we can do to improve our posture and reduce aches and pains that don’t require walking around with a book on top of your head. And the good news is that by simply being aware of what proper alignment looks and feels like you can catch yourself from slouching next time you sit down in a chair. Over time this awareness will become habitual and with the addition of other therapies having and keeping proper alignment will feel natural and easy!

 

  1. Clinical measurement of the thoracic kyphosis. A study of the intra-rater reliability in subjects with and without shoulder pain. Jeremy Lewis- Rachel Valentine- BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders- 2010
  2. Upper cervical mobility, posture and myofascial trigger points in subjects with episodic migraine: Case-control study. Danit Tali- Itay Menahem- Elisha Vered- Leonid Kalichman- Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies- 2014
  3.  The working mechanism of manual therapy in participants with chronic tension-type headache. Rene Castien- Annette Blankenstein- Danielle Windt- Martijn Heymans- Joost Dekker- Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy- 2013