Most people may be suffering from symptoms associated with bad posture without even noticing it. If you observe yourself enough, you can identify poor posture such as forward head posture, which can be caused by weak neck muscles, incorrect sleeping position, seated job position or extended hours on computer or TV.
Consequently, poor posture affects your spine, hips, shoulders and knees. It can cause a series of structural flaws leading to joint and back pain, compromised muscles and reduced flexibility. The worst of all, poor posture may cause nerve constriction. While the spine shape changes, the resulting movements will place pressure around the spinal nerves. Since the nerves that are connected to the spine originate from all over our body, the pinched nerves will not only cause back and neck pain, but will also cause pain to other areas of our body.
The Most Common Bad Posture Positions
The following are the most common poor postures that many people are making, along with the best posture corrector applicable:
Round Shoulders – This brings shoulder forward as the effect; the top part turns on providing help in order to support shoulder from the neck. This can be fixed by lying face down; arms at 90-degree angle, high-five position. Raise both arms by pulling shoulder back and squeezing shoulder blade together. Need to hold for 5-seconds; do 2 to 3 sets at 12 repetitions daily.
Forward Neck/Head – The muscles are stiff in the back of neck. It can be fixed by moving the head only, dropping chin down and in toward the sternum, stretching back of neck at the same time. Hold for 5-seconds; do it 10-times a day.
Anterior Pelvic Tilt – Lacking support through transverse abs. Often unstable hip joint because of stretched joint capsules. To remedy the situation try this: kneel on left knee having the right foot on floor, knee bent. Start pressing forward until the feeling of stretch in the left hip. Tighten butt muscles on left side until feeling the front of hip comfortably stretching. Reach upward using left arm and stretch to right side. Hold position for 30-seconds. Do three repetitions on each side.
Elevated Shoulder – The muscle under the chest is weak. The fix: You can sit upright using chair with hands next to hips, palms down on seat, the arms straight. Push down on chair until the hips lift up, torso rises. Hold position for 5-seconds. Do two to three sets at 12 reps daily.
How Bad Posture Can Hurt Your Health
The common results of bad posture known to most people include back pain, aching neck and painful shoulders. However, recent research reveals that it is not just sitting and standing up straight can bring up some devastating health problems.
Most people who try to improve health tend to overlooked matters regarding posture. What they are taking for granted are the unhealthy symptoms brought about by bad posture.
Hurting one’s life expectancy
A recent study shows that after the age 25, an individual is reducing life’s expectancy with every single hour he/she spend slouching on a couch. Moreover, people who spend most of the time sitting doubles the risk to develop diabetes and increases risk having cardiovascular disease.
This can be fixed by standing up from the chair without the aid of your arms and sit down again in a gentle, controlled motion. Doing simple movements is one way to keep lower body muscle strong.
Hurting body circulation
One important activity of human body is to move gases and fluid back and forth. Sitting for long period, especially with crossed legs can cut off the flow cycle, increase the pressure and can even bring spider veins.
In order to fix bad posture such as this and get the blood flowing again, you need to stand and find the best posture possible. Start by lifting one of the legs up, which will position your thigh horizontally to the ground. While keeping your standing leg firm, make five strong breaths, pushing the breathing down to the diaphragm. Do the same on the other side.
Hurting the regularity
When sitting in a crunched position, the intestines will be folded up. This will slow down almost everything. Choose to do Yoga, this is a good exercise make your core strong and help to get things moving again. One good stretching is the “cobra”. This is done by lying down on your belly with head resting on lower arms. Slowly raise forehead looking upwards and letting weight rest on the chest. Let the head fall back a bit, move the belly further off from the mat.
Hurting the mood
People that practice good posture increases testosterone levels and decreases cortisol levels at the same time. In the contrary, people who choose to slouch decreases testosterone and increases cortisol. That means having low self-confidence coupled with high stress.
Accordingly, sitting slouched over complicates the problem. The shallow chest breathing can strain the lungs because it has to move faster in order to ensure adequate flow of oxygen. In the process, the heart will be forced to catch speed to provide the right amount of blood to transport oxygen. This result to a vicious cycle, the stress prompts the shallow breathing, which will create more stress.
One can remind self to do breathing exercise by setting up an alarm or use natural signals such as stop light. Doing relaxed abdominal breathing can combat stress. Here is an exercise to make sure you are breathing deeply: Rest hand below belly button; feel that your belly expands while inhaling. Let the air down all the way to the deepest part of the lungs, where good oxygen exchange is done more efficient. While exhaling, you should feel your belly contracting. This will effectively eliminate stress from your body.
Hurting your job
Slouching will not only affect your attitude, it will also affect how people will see you. Think of this, you do not intend walking in someone else’s office slouching, simply because people will consider you as unimportant. In order to improve bad posture, there is a need to strengthen the muscles especially the mid-back.
Fixing posture problem like this can be done by avoiding slouching on the job. Instead try doing the following exercise: lift bottom of ribcage of the hipbone; pull shoulder blades back then down. Do this repeatedly for at least 10-minutes.
Hurting your happiness
In a study, students are advised to walk down the hall either in slouched position or skipping. The result reveals that those who choose the slouched position increased their feeling of depression and lower the energy.
A good exercise is the answer to this concern. Imagine that a headlight is placed right in the middle of the chest. Regardless whether you are sitting or standing the objective is to beam the light straight forward. Accordingly, you can keep your head centered over the shoulder by extending head toward ceiling, but not lifting the chin.