How To Improve Your Posture Naturally

Posted in Health Disorders on Sep 25, 2018

What do we mean by good vs bad posture?

Posture is not a constant state of being. It’s always changing.Our bodies are constantly moving so we can’t expect to have perfectposture all the time. But overall, we want to have at least a“good” posture. But what is meant by “good” posture? Inherently, wecan look at someone with bad posture and know they have badposture, but what constitutes “bad” posture?

Request Appointment

Name

Middle name

Last name

Date of birth

Gender

Phone

Select office

Select doctor

Date

Select time slot

By downloading the Digital Patient Chart mobile app you can better control your patient portal.

Good posture is best described as a general position of the bodythat allows for the least stress on the joints and allows foroptimal function. In contrast, we can say that “bad” posture iswhen the body is in a position that does NOT allow for properfunction and ADDS stress to different parts of the body.

Now, we can be in bad posture and not necessarily feel bad, butover time, bad posture habits will add up. For example, if the headis too far forward, then it adds a lot of stress to the muscles ofthe neck and upper back. These muscles need to pull much harder tokeep the head up. Just a 2-inch change in position can add up to 50lbs of strain on your neck and shoulders.

After even more time in this bad position, not only do we seetight muscles, but we can start seeing changes in bone. Your spinecan change shape and abnormal stress can lead to bone spurs anddegenerative disc disease. Once these spurs form, there’s not muchthat can be done to reverse them. Leave this alone for too long andthe bone spurs can eventually lead to fusions.

How can I tell how my posture is?

An easy way to evaluate your own postures is to ask someone totake at least 2 pictures of yourself standing up: one from thefront and one from the side.

When looking at yourself from the front, your eyes, shoulders,and hips should be level. Also, the midpoint between your eyes,shoulders, and hips should make a straight line down. From theside, the center of your ear, the top of your shoulder, your hip,your knee and your ankle should all be in a straight line.

After looking at this, you’ll be able to see where your posturetends to stay and fix it from there.

How do I fix bad posture?

To fix bad posture, there are a few different steps. 1. Stretchthe tight muscles, 2, Strengthen the weak muscles, 3. Set your bodyto good habits.

Stretch the tight muscles. When someone has bad posture, thereare muscles that tend to be tight all the time. In order todecrease the stress on the body, these need to be identified andstretched so that they can loosen.

Strengthen the weak muscles. Just as some muscles are tight,there are others that are already stretched and thus weak. Thesemust be strengthened through specific exercises that help thesemuscles stronger and keep you upright.

Set your body to good habits. Your daily habits are going toultimately determine if any of these previous steps are going to beeffective. Are you looking down at your phone? Do you lean forwardwhen using the computer? Are you doing anything else to help?

What to do next?

It sounds simple, but you must follow these steps consistentlyfor there to be any noticeable change.

In the next couple of posts, I’ll be diving deep into what youcan do to fix and maintain good posture and overall better health.I’ll be splitting them up into the upper body and lower bodysections. Stay tuned!

How To Improve Your Posture Naturally