Spending more time on the sofa, at your computer, and on your mobile devices has almost certainly brought you to Google to look for strategies to improve your posture.
Those searches are likely to have left you wondering: what is posture?
The position of your body while standing, sitting, or lying down is known as posture.
In other words, posture is the way you hold your body.
To put it another way, posture is the stance you take when you sit, stand, run, walk, sleep, or even lean over.
Posture is one of those things that we all know we need to work on.
When you slouch in your chair or stand with poor posture, you put additional strain on your joints and make your muscles work harder, which can lead to pain.
Take your neck for example.
Your neck muscles will have to work very little if you sit with your head's center of gravity aligned over the spine.
If you sit with your head tilted forward, as you might when checking email or social media on your phone or computer, the muscles in your neck take on the extra tension.
As a result, your neck muscles have to work more, and your body has to adapt.
Additional tension on your spinal joints might be caused by weak or imbalanced muscular strength.
Additional tension from postural abnormalities and weary muscles can contribute to alterations in movement and pain over time.
Do you have nagging aches and pains on a daily basis?
Getting a posture evaluation in Austin, Texas is a terrific place to start, believe us.
There are also things you may accomplish from the convenience of your own home.
Read on.
Making adjustments to keep your spinal curves aligned and your weight evenly distributed is part of improving your posture.
Good posture is essential because it enables you to reduce stress on your spine and joints, which is necessary with gravity pulling down on you every day.
Your spinal joints and ligaments can move more freely over their complete range of motion with less stress.
As a result, changing your posture can help you move more freely and feel better.
What’s more, new research also indicates that maintaining a good or balanced posture can help you use your muscles more efficiently and prevent fatigue.
Getting a posture evaluation in Austin, Texas will assist you in determining the best ways to begin actively improving your posture.
Your best posture for avoiding back pain may be one in which you move around.
"Motion is lotion," as chiropractors frequently say (for your body).
When you sit in one posture for an extended period of time, your body's tiny nerves detect the increasing pressure and send signals to your brain that you're uncomfortable.
Researchers believe those impulses are our bodies' way of warning us to move before we feel pain.
That's why we say pain means "pay attention inside right now."
This is your cue to move!
Changing positions or using a standing desk can help you improve your posture and lower your risk of chronic neck and back discomfort.
And if you've been considering investing in a standing desk, get this.
When compared to sitting at a desk, standing desks have been demonstrated to lessen back discomfort by over 30%.
One of the best ways to start improving your posture is not staying in a single position for too long.
To help relieve and balance the physical stress placed on your body each day, it’s recommended that you stand and move around frequently.
Changing your position at regular intervals, using a lumbar support when seated, and even using a standing desk are all ways to reduce fatigue and pain and to actively start improving your posture.
If you’re having a hard time remembering to move, set a timer on your phone to help you keep track of the time and develop the habit.
If you tend to sit for long periods, make those reminders to stand.
You could take it a step further and use that time to refill your water bottle to help keep you hydrated.
Better yet, you could use that time to perform a couple of the postural exercises we showed you the last time you were in the office or on our social channels.
Different apps can help make your practice easy.
Just figure out what works best for you and do your best to stick to it.
And if you notice you’re not able to move through your body's full range of motion without pain, don’t put off getting checked out.
Take 5 minutes to schedule a posture assessment in Austin, Texas with us.
By proactively addressing your movement issues today, we can start improving your posture before those nagging aches and pains set in!
Science Sources:
Back Health and Posture. Cleveland Clinic. 2020.
Breaking Up Sitting with Standing Improves Discomfort. Occup Environ Med. 2014.
