Living with a poor posture can affect your health in several ways. Without correcting your posture, you could experience back pain, neck pain, shoulder strain and headaches. It could even affect your digestion.
Exploring posture correcting techniques can really benefit your health, especially with age.
Causes of Poor Posture
Bad posture can be caused by a variety of issues with your daily routine. Stress can cause overly contracted muscles, technology can encourage your neck and back to be held in too much flexion, and injuries can all lead to poor posture.
While suffering with an injury, muscles neighbouring the injury often go into spasm. This is their way of keeping your injury stable and protecting it from further damage. However, muscles that remain in spasm can begin to weaken and cause an imbalance between neighbouring muscles. This can be consequential for your body’s posture and functioning.
Posture Correcting Techniques
To reduce the health risks caused by poor posture, it is best to explore ways to correct it.
Stress Relief
When you feel stressed, you may find yourself hunching your shoulders, slouching and tensing your muscles. As a result, your poor posture can cause pain, further adding to your stress. Therefore, trying to improve your state of mind can significantly improve your health and wellbeing.
Office Posture
Sitting for long durations, hunched over a keyboard is never good for your posture. While working, ensure you have an adjustable chair, short but frequent breaks to walk around and uncross your legs. There is a lot of inspiration online for small desk exercises that you can do to improve your posture and feel more comfortable.
Diet & Exercise
Yoga and Pilates have been well praised for how they strengthen your core muscles, improving your flexibility and posture. Simple exercises, such as stretching and going for walks, after long periods of sitting, take little time but really help.
In addition, your diet is just as important. Excellent posture requires healthy bones. Therefore, calcium-rich meals and avoiding fizzy drinks is recommended.
Visiting an Osteopathic Practice
Osteopaths are experts at dealing with poor posture and can give you advice on how to stand and sit correctly. Maintaining good posture at work is especially important for people who have a desk job and have to remain in the same position for extended periods of time.
Osteopathic treatment can help to correct poor posture and help to realign your body so that it can function more effectively.
At Solihull Osteopathic Practice, our dedicated team of specialists are here to help. As well as poor posture, we can use osteopathic treatment for pain relief and to ease a variety of issues. To book an appointment with one of our osteopaths, please call 0121 705 4499.