Hello Whole Health tribe,
As many of you know your posture is incredibly important to your overall spinal health; Remember when your parents or grandparents told you to stop slouching, and more often than not we’d just shrugged it off… well there is actually some truth to what they said.
Your posture, day-in and day-out, plays a vital significance on your spine and overall health. Held within your back is a spinal cord which connects your brain to your tailbone; sending signals up and down the spine connecting your brain to vital organs, tissues, glands, and muscles. Did you know even your posture is controlled by your nervous system?
Your body’s posture is established early on in life - when a baby is given tummy and back time, their spinal curves are then being established. As we age and grow up the way we position our shoulders, hips, and head when we are sitting, standing, or even laying down shape the way our spine develops. While doing all these things we are conditioning our spine and muscles into that shape or form. This then becomes our body’s “normal.” If you consistently have forward rolled shoulders or slouch when sitting, you are more than likely have trained the nerves that innervate certain muscles in those areas to either tighten up or relax. This is termed Neuromuscular Education…
Forward head posture and rounded shoulders do to looking at our phones or computer screens can cause tightening of the trapezius, para-spinal, and rhomboid muscles as they try to pull the head backwards causing neck and shoulder tension and occasionally headaches.
So in order to train to bad posture out of us we must do some work.
Unfortunately, our posture is so instilled in us that most of us don’t even think about and so in order to re-train our body’s we must make a conscious effort in the beginning. As you begin to work through some of the tips and suggestions you nervous system and thus your muscles will begin to establish a new “normal” for you. I’ll use the example from above: By bringing your shoulders and head back over your center of gravity you enable those your trapezius and paraspinals to be more relaxed as they are not having to work harder to keep your head from going too far forward.
Tips for correction:
1. Neurological corrective chiropractic care to assist your nervous system to fire balanced nerve impulses to all of your muscles.
2. Neuromuscular reeducation exercises to re-train your spinal muscles and nerves on correct alignment and joint motion.
3. Proper strengthening and stretching exercises done daily to promote muscular balance through re-education of neurological pathways.
4. Core stabilization exercises
5. Kinesio-taping for postural correction
6. Proper work ergonomics