5 Surprising Ways Poor Posture Can Impact Your Health and How to Fix It

Who among us didn’t grow up with adults telling us to stand up straight? It turns out Mom and Dad were onto something: slouching can have serious effects on your health. Not only do we look more confident when we have good posture, but standing up straight might help you avoid issues like back and neck pain, pinched nerves, and more.

The Minneapolis Chiropractic Center may be able to correct your poor posture in Minneapolis, MN. Chiropractic treatment may be effective in readjusting the spine so that symptoms like headaches, muscle pain, and pinched nerves fade away as the body readjusts and heals itself.

What poor posture does to your body

One day of poor posture is unlikely to hurt you, but a lifetime of slouching can have cumulative effects that impact your health. Here are just a few of the health problems you may face due to poor posture:

1. Muscle pain: This one’s a no-brainer. If you hold your body in uncomfortable positions, your muscles will feel the strain. It’s not just your back, neck, and shoulders, either – poor posture can affect muscles from the base of your skull all the way down to your hips and lower body.
2. Pinched nerves: Once your muscles are out of alignment or are inflamed, they can start to compress your nerves. This often manifests as tingling or numbness radiating down your neck, spine, or arms.
3. Arthritis and other joint degeneration: Poor posture overworks your back and neck muscles, which your body will then try to heal. Over time, however, inflammation can cause degeneration in nearby joints.
4. Fatigue: When you can’t relax, you can’t sleep. If your slouching has already started causing you pain, you’re less likely to be able to get comfortable and sleep as well as you should.
5. Headaches: Finally, any time you’re slouching forward and putting additional weight on your neck, you’re at risk of developing headaches. The muscles in your neck and spine can tighten from the strain and cause tension headaches.

How to fix poor posture

After having bad posture for months or even years, adjusting it is not as easy as remembering to sit up straight a few times a day. However, your posture can be adjusted over time using some simple steps:

• Move throughout the day: Don’t just save your workout for before or after work. To make sure that your posture is impeccable and your muscles don’t get too fatigued in any one position, make sure you take regular breaks throughout the day in which you move your entire body. You might do yoga at your desk, take walks around the block, or even do squats and stretches for five minutes in your office. Every little bit of movement counts to keep your spine healthy!
• Consider your desk setup: Is your desk setting you up for failure? Your monitor needs to be straight ahead, at eye level, to keep your posture straight. For every inch your head tilts downward, you’re almost doubling the weight and pressure on your neck and spine. Even if you have a standing desk, your monitor should be at eye level, and you’ll need to keep a close eye on your standing posture.
• Chiropractic adjustment: Chiropractic treatment may help correct your poor posture, especially if it’s caused by a spinal subluxation. Chiropractors use gentle physical manipulations of the neck, spine, and shoulders to physically adjust the muscles and connective tissues in your body. This may take pressure off the spine so that your body can naturally move back into alignment. You might find this particularly useful if you’ve suffered pinched nerves due to poor posture and misalignment.

Exercises to correct poor posture

In addition to any medical and chiropractic treatment you may need, a few simple exercises can strengthen your back, neck, and shoulders to make it easier for you to stand or sit up straight.

• Core exercises: Planks, crunches, and leg extensions can help you strengthen your core, which bolsters your ability to support the spine and neck.
• Superman: Lie on your stomach with your arms above your head. Raise your arms and legs off the ground, hold for ten seconds, and rest. Try to complete a set of ten reps.
• Neck extensions: For this exercise, sit in a tall-backed chair and push your head firmly against the headrest for 30 seconds. Relax, rest, and repeat a few more times to strengthen your neck muscles.
• Shoulder blades: Any exercise to strengthen your shoulder blades can have a positive effect on your posture. Try squeezing your shoulder blades back together, hold for 10 to 15 seconds, rest, and repeat.

If you’ve been suffering from the negative effects of poor posture, Visit us, top rated Uptown Minneapolis chiropractor, We use a comprehensive Chiropractic BioPhysics (CBP) approach to design individual treatment plans for each of our patients and will work with you to get the best results possible.

Chiropractic BioPhysics, or CBP, is one of the most scientific, researched, and results-oriented corrective care techniques. CBP-trained chiropractors aim to realign the spine back to health, eliminating nerve interference and addressing the source of pain, fatigue, and disease. As with all chiropractic care, CBP is gentle, painless, and non-invasive.