Posture

Remember when your mother said “stand up straight!”?  She was right.  Good posture is essential to health.  Your brain expends a lot of energy controlling and coordinating hundreds of muscle groups whenever posture is “sub-optimal.”  Less than optimal posture can include a high shoulder, a forward stooping head, a rotated trunk (torso), a hunch back, a high hip, and a side-bent neck.  Abnormal posture can result from trauma (like a car accident or fall), repetitive movements (like turning your neck towards your monitor), and certain bad postural habits (like sleeping on your stomach).

Imagine a straight line drawn from between your eyes down to your feet:   in order to have good posture, your body mass should be evenly divided on either side of the line when viewed from the front.  When viewed from the side, a straight line should be able to pass through your earlobe, your shoulder joint, your hip socket, and your ankle.

Poor posture can lead to several problems:  It can accelerate joint wear and tear (osteoarthritis), due to uneven weight distribution.  It can make breathing difficult by interfering with proper ribcage expansion.  This can result in fatigue and other symptoms.  Poor posture, particularly extreme anterior (forward) head carriage can cause your muscles to feel sore along the back of your neck, shoulders and upper back.  It can even lead to lower back pain as your spine struggles to counterbalance the forward position of the head.

We can help improve posture with posture-correction chiropractic spinal adjustments and specific, targeted exercises.