Healthy Posture Guidelines: Posture is how an individual holds their body. Healthy posture is when minimal stress is applied to the joints. Maintaining and holding your body correctly can prevent pain, injuries, and other health problems. Faulty postures and musculoskeletal imbalances often precipitate painful conditions in the spine and extremities. However, unhealthy postures do not always present with discomfort and pain symptoms that can go unnoticed for years. This leads to chronic stress and advanced wear of the joints. Injury Medical Chiropractic and Functional Medicine Clinic can realign the spine, relieve symptoms, and restore flexibility, mobility, and function.
Healthy Posture Guidelines
There are two types of posture:
Dynamic Posture
- This posture is when the body moves, like walking, running, or bending to pick up something.
Static Posture
- This posture is when the body is not moving, like sitting, standing, or sleeping.
Both are important, and the key is the spine's position. The spine has three natural curves: neck, mid, and low back. Correct posture maintains the curves with the head above the shoulders, and the top of the shoulder should be over the hips.
Unhealthy Positioning
Postural faults include:
- Forward head positioning
- Rounded shoulders
- Loss of the normal lordosis curve in the lower back.
Early warning signs of postural problems may include:
- The inability to sit or stand for a prolonged period.
- Stiffness when getting up from a chair after sitting.
- Feeling of physical exhaustion at the end of the day.
- Muscle imbalances.
- Loss of normal flexibility.
- Symptoms of discomfort.
Affected Health
Unhealthy posture can affect overall health and includes:
- Misaligned musculoskeletal system.
- Decreased flexibility.
- Neck, shoulder, and back pain.
- The advanced wearing down of the spine making it more fragile and susceptible to injury.
- Affected joint movement.
- Affected balance.
- Increased risk of falling.
- Digestion problems.
- Potential breathing problems.
Improvements
Be mindful of your posture during everyday activities, like walking, watching tv, washing dishes, etc.
Maintain Physical Activity
- Certain exercises like yoga, tai chi, and other classes focusing on body awareness can help develop healthy posture habits.
- Exercises that strengthen the core muscles around the back, abdomen, and pelvis.
Maintain Healthy Weight
- Extra weight can weaken the abdominal muscles, cause problems for the pelvis and spine, and contribute to back pain.
Wear Comfortable Shoes
- High heels, for example, can throw off the body's balance and force unhealthy walking movements.
- This puts added stress on the muscles and affects posture.
Proper Height
- Make sure workstations are at a comfortable height, whether sitting in front of a computer, making dinner, or eating.
Chiropractic Care
Chiropractors and physical massage therapists specialize in evaluating and treating musculoskeletal dysfunction and identifying and screening for postural dysfunction. Healthy posture can have an immediate effect on health that include:
- Proper alignment of bones and joints.
- Reduced wear on the muscles and joints.
- Reduced stress on ligaments.
- Decreased risk of back injury.
- Increased energy.
- Improved digestion.
A chiropractic team will massage and relax the muscles reducing tension, adjust and realign the spine, increase joint movement, and ease the individual into a healthy posture. The team will also provide careful rehabilitation exercises and nutritional recommendations to maintain a healthy posture.
Custom Foot Orthotics
The information herein is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified healthcare professional or licensed physician and is not medical advice. We encourage you to make healthcare decisions based on your research and partnership with a qualified healthcare professional. Our information scope is limited to chiropractic, musculoskeletal, physical medicines, wellness, sensitive health issues, functional medicine articles, topics, and discussions. We provide and present clinical collaboration with specialists from a wide array of disciplines. Each specialist is governed by their professional scope of practice and their jurisdiction of licensure. We use functional health & wellness protocols to treat and support care for the injuries or disorders of the musculoskeletal system. Our videos, posts, topics, subjects, and insights cover clinical matters, issues, and topics that relate to and directly or indirectly support our clinical scope of practice.* Our office has reasonably attempted to provide supportive citations and identified the relevant research study or studies supporting our posts. We provide copies of supporting research studies available to regulatory boards and the public upon request.
We understand that we cover matters that require an additional explanation of how it may assist in a particular care plan or treatment protocol; therefore, to further discuss the subject matter above, please contact Dr. Alex Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC, MSACP, CCST, IFMCP*, CIFM*, ATN*
email: coach@elpasofunctionalmedicine.com
Licensed in: Texas & New Mexico*
References
Carini, Francesco, et al. “posture and posturology, anatomical and physiological profiles: overview and current state of the art.”Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis vol. 88,1 11-16. 28 Apr. 2017, doi:10.23750/abm.v88i1.5309
Creze, Maud, et al. “posture-related stiffness mapping of paraspinal muscles.”Journal of anatomy vol. 234,6 (2019): 787-799. doi:10.1111/joa.12978
Korakakis, Vasileios, et al. “physiotherapist perceptions of optimal sitting and standing posture.”Musculoskeletal science & practice vol. 39 (2019): 24-31. doi:10.1016/j.msksp.2018.11.004
https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2017/08/getting-it-straight
