Improve your posture, Improve your life...

Your posture is like a double sided mirror. As you may have heard your mom tell you to sit up straight at the dinner table or at your computer desk, it can influence a lot more than just your appearance. Your spine holds your nervous system which in turn controls your entire body. Now imagine your posture being a representative of how your spine and nerves are being stretched. Poor posture will cause an interference with the nervous system and can cause a variety of disease.
Improving your posture is going to take some work especially with the habits of today’s modern living, but in the long run will increase your chances of living a healthier life. If the health of your nervous system is not your priority, you must be warned research has shown that erect posture has also been linked success in the business world and taking off a few years off your real age. So if success or looking younger is your priority, read on.
To discuss what things can be done to improve your posture, the need to understand what good posture is becomes important. Your spine has three major curves that hold your body erect and create an “S” shaped curvature throughout the spine. This “S” curve is designed much like a spring to absorb the compressive load and is able to handle tensile loads by optimally balancing muscles on the front and back of the spine. With a sedentary lifestyle or sitting for prolonged hours, your body adapts to the hunched-over posture your spine will resemble a “C” curve instead of the nice “S.” This not only increases your risk of injury but is also responsible for a long list of symptoms. Are you suffering from headaches, muscle aches and imbalances, tingling and numbness in the extremities, carpal tunnel syndrome, joint pain or dysfunctions, sciatica, chronic fatigue syndrome, and most importantly, poor posture? The reason may just be that.
If someone is observing you from the side, your ear, shoulder, hip, and ankle should all line up in a straight line. Now this becomes complicated if you have rounded shoulders and a forward head posture. If you are being looked at from the front, your feet must not be turned out or in noticeably. There should be not rotation or tilt in your head, and your chin and belly button, should be in a straight line.
Exercise is the most basic and well known remedy to improving your posture. For those of you who are gym rats, you do take your poor posture with you to the gym. Working out with a good posture is in a sense more important than having good posture while you sit at your desk. When you do exercises that place your spine in more of a “C” type curve, it is making you more prone to injury.
Most people suffer from what is called an “Anterior Weight Bearing” or a forward head posture. In simple terms, your head is more forward than the rest of your body and from the side your ear and shoulder do not line up. To correct this posture, while you are seated at your chair before starting to do hours and hours of work at your desk, you can tuck your chin in and retract your chin back towards your neck and hold that position for three full breaths. You can start at five repetitions, and build up from there. In order to correct shoulders that are rounded forward, you can extend your arms out and up to about shoulder height, bent at the elbows. Imagine a pencil in between your shoulder blades and your job is to squeeze that pencil in between your scapulas. You should feel a stretch along your chest and the front of your shoulders. Hold for three full breaths and repeat 5 times.

Improving your posture and re-creating the normal “S” curve in your spine can increase your range of motion, optimize your nerve function, reduce tension in your neck, shoulders, and jaw, expand your lung capacity, relieve muscle aches and sciatica, and most importantly make you look and feel younger!

Correcting your posture or rebuilding it may take some work, but you have to be aware that if you have a structurally rotated, or translated, or shifted spine, then exercises alone will not improve your posture.

A hand full of chiropractic doctors here in California focus their doctorate studies in Postural Correction. Consult with one if you suffer from poor posture and it is affecting your health. Check out our website for more information: www.nonadjavid.com If you live in Orange County, we offer free spinal screenings as well as free posture analysis in our office in Newport Beach. Call us at 949.922.3465 to make an appointment