Good posture is more than not hunching and looking good. It’s also about your health!
Poor posture can cause a number of problems, from back pain, rounded shoulders, joint degeneration, headaches and even a potbelly.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to fix bad posture so that you can sit up straighter, stand taller and sleep better. We’ll also answer some of the most common questions people have when it comes to their postural habits.
Firstly what is posture?
It’s the alignment of your spine and how you stand or sit. Posture is how you hold your body. Most people relate posture to how we hold our body when we’re either sitting standing or sleeping. This is called static posture.
Dynamic posture is how you hold yourself when you are moving, like when you are walking, running, or bending over to pick up something.
It is important to make sure that you have good dynamic and static posture.
So what exactly is good posture?
Good posture is the position of your body in which it looks upright, well balanced and relaxed.
A person with good posture will have their spine straight and not curved (hyperextended or flexed). They’ll also keep their head erect without any forward tilt while looking ahead. This way they’re able to see all around them.
Good postural habits include sitting up straight, standing tall instead of slouching over and sleeping on a firm mattress that doesn’t cause you to sink down into it.
Good posture is when you stand in a way that your spine is straight, and the key points in your body are aligned.
You need to look at your posture from the front side and the back.
For most people, it is the side on View that is most obvious when it comes to poor posture here we want to see a straight line running from the ear the middle of the shoulder the middle of the hips and the ankle joint.
For some people they noticed it when they are looking in the mirror that they noticed One hip being higher than the other or one shoulder being higher than the other the most common cause of this is a scoliosis which is a curvature of the spine or tight muscles in the neck
What does poor posture look like?
Bad posture is the position of your body in which it looks slumped, off balance and tense.
A person with bad posture will have their spine curved (hyperextended or flexed). They’ll also keep their head tilted forward looking down at the ground so that they can see what’s right in front of them. This way they’re not able to see all around them.
Common postural habits include slouching over while sitting or standing up straight without any rounded shoulders instead of hunching over; sleeping on a soft mattress that causes you to sink into it, etc.
because of the way that your body is designed, bad posture will put a strain on very specific areas of your body, we call these the junctional areas.
These junctional areas cop the most strain – they are
1) where the head joins the neck
2) the base of the neck where it joins the shoulders
3) the mid back
4) where the low back joins the pelvis
– back: for example, your lower and upper spine will curve forward due to the weight of the head. This can lead to a sore neck or even headaches as well as persistent muscle pain in that area
– shoulders: when you have poor posture, one shoulder is usually higher than the other because it’s been overloaded with too much responsibility. It also leads to stiff muscles from putting excess pressure on them without being stretched out
– hips: if your hip joints are not aligned then they can cause more tension on other parts of your body such as knees, ankles and feet
What causes poor posture?
Bad posture can come from many things like the effects of gravity on our bodies that we face every day or it may be due to an injury or muscle spasm, muscle weakness, not being mindful of our posture, daily habits such as computer laptop and phone usage, even our mental state can affect our postures such as stress depression, and even our choice of shoes, such as high heels.
For example the most common cause of poor posture the people that attend our clinic is weakness in the supporting muscles around the spine commonly known as the core. If you are sitting for long periods of time it’s very easy for our core muscles to begin to switch off and not support our rib cage pelvis and spine properly as a result our upper back tensed 100 forwards and our shoulders become rounded and our chin starts to poke forward sometimes this can cause further compensations lower down with the pelvis rotating forward and the bottom sticking out with a pot belly.
Who does poor posture affect?
Poor posture is definitely something that you develop over time so we tend to see children from 5 to 10 have the best postures as they’re typically very active full stop unfortunately we are seeing increase in incidence of teenagers with poor posture and due to spending less time being active and more time on electronic devices. it is the same as we get older as our occupations have changed over the decades we tend to be more sedentary which encourages the development of poor posture. the older you get the more likely you are to develop changes in your posture due to changes in the bone density and muscle strength. however becoming aware that your posture is perhaps not ideal is the first step in reversing it. if you are under the age of 70 it is never too late to work on your posture to improve your overall health and well-being and especially important for teenagers and children to learn the importance of having good static and dynamic posture especially as for many of them they will have many years of studying ahead of them
Do I need to fix my posture if it is not ideal?
That is a great question and the answer is it really depends. so if you were sitting at your desk for 8 hours a day completely slumped with your shoulders forward looking down at a laptop then yes you are definitely going to run into problems and you do need to pay attention to your posture. on the flip side do you need to sit up Deadbolt upright like a robot 100% of the time? When you were sitting or studying your alignment should be fairly close to the ideal alignment that we’ve described above but you should always encourage some flexibility around that it’s ok to slouch a little from time to time – in fact changing your posture frequently is the best thing that you can do whilst minimising the extremes of your postures. slump for a little bit but not too long. the biggest indicator of whether your poor posture needs to be fixed depends on the amount of time that you spend in that position.
So we need to think posture has not one ideal alignment. Our posture can actually be a range of different postures as long as we do not spend too much time in one posture or at the extremes of our postures.
Can you fix bad posture?
There’s actually quite easy to fix poor posture sometimes it can be fixed immediately with some simple correction. For children and teens correct in posture he’s probably just bringing awareness to the fact that they are such in all the time and give him some simple corrective techniques and reminders that they need to change their posture frequently. as we get a little bit older and we’ve had years or decades of slouching plus or minus a few injuries and the stresses of modern life we may have to get a little bit more specific and implement some corrective exercise Target in the core and the back. essentially everybody can correct the bad posture unless you have a medical condition such as osteoporosis or spinal fractures or significant structural scoliosis.
What is the best way to improve my posture?
The best way to improve your posture always starts with awareness of what your current pasta is like and what you like your posture to be. good Posture always starts with wherever we are supporting ourselves from
For example if we’re standing good posture starts from the feet. if you are wearing stilettos all your arches have collapsed the rest of your body is going to compensate and it’s going to be difficult to have good posture through the back neck and shoulders. the best way to improve your standing posture is to imagine there is a cable pulling up from the top of your head and gently lift in an elongate in your entire spine. when we do this we grow tall and our Tummy stops sagging our shoulders come back and chin retracts.
If you’re sitting then it’s your pelvis that will determine the alignment of your spine and head. your shoulders will follow what your pelvis does so if you roll back on your pelvis your lower back will flex and your upper back we’ll round forwards and your chin will poke forwards. it will be impossible to correct be around shoulders lol your pelvis is in the wrong position. the best way to correct your posture when you’re seated is to roll your pelvis forwards like your sticking out your bottom and naturally your entire spine will follow then you just gently need to retract your shoulders and chin.
The end of this blog post offers a number of helpful tips on how to improve your sitting, standing and sleeping positions. So if you’re looking for ways to get better at these three key areas, then read on! We hope we’ve answered all of your questions about correcting or maintaining good posture!