Good posture means holding your body properly. This can reduce neck and back pain, while also helping us to sit and stand straighter.
It probably comes as no surprise that the biggest cause of bad posture is a poor ergonomic workstation setup. When you spend long hours with your head positioned forward, toward the computer screen, looking down at your phone week after week, year after year and slouching your back while sitting for hours without standing you will end up with bad posture. Add in sleeping with a pillow that’s too thick or using two pillows that push the head and neck forward and you end up with muscle fatigue. So, you give up on having good posture and slouch.
But, what can you do to improve your posture? Dr. Murphy is offering a few tips!
Have a co-worker or friend take a side picture of you at your workstation so you can see what your posture looks like and see what needs to be changed. Then, begin doing corrective exercises, specific exercises that help to strengthen the muscles that work hard for us to keep good posture. Stretch the tight & short muscles that make poor posture worse like the regions of the chest, front of shoulders and neck and take movement breaks every hour. This can simply be standing up and reaching or stretching for 1 – 2 minutes and then get back to work… so not an excuse to be a slacker.
Dr. Murphy always says, “Posture is like nutrition. It takes constant work and effort.” We are always trying to improve our eating habits and posture is no different.
Have a posture buddy. This works well for exercise and for diets so it can also work for improving your posture. Have a buddy that will hold you accountable and check in on you.
Your spine only has some much capacity when it comes to the physical stress that it can handle each day. Don’t waste that capacity on your poor work position, save it for training or playing with your kids and family. This will also reduce the rate of inevitable spinal degeneration. Poor posture can increase the rate that our spine degenerates. This is a natural aging process, but if it’s going to happen anyway, why would you want to accelerate the process?
If you would like to explore whether taping is an option for you, call us at (203) 580-3232.
Find information here about what to expect during your first visit. Initial visits last one hour so that we have time to thoroughly assess your complaints and determine the best course of action. This initial evaluation helps us to determine the specific cause of your symptoms. From there, we can develop a unique treatment plan tailored to helping you heal as quickly as possible.
Follow us on Instagram, @stamford.spine for more chiropractic tips!
