Banish Posture
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BANISH B D POSTURE www.chwc.com.au Table of Content Introduction I Chapter 1 - Good Posture 1 Chapter 2 - Bad Posture 7 Chapter 3 - Importance of Sleep 10 Chapter 4 - Exercise 12 Conclusion 20 Banish Bad Posture www.chwc.com.au | Chiropractic Health & Wellness Centre Introduction Ever heard the saying “follow the path of least resistance”? Well, I don’t know if it’s always good advice, but when it comes to your posture, that’s exactly what your body does. Think of an adolescent you need to constantly remind to sit straight, or stand tall. They do it when you ask ... for 30 seconds. But quickly end up back in a bad posture. Why don’t they listen? Interestingly, it’s actually uncomfortable for them to sit straight. They are “fighting” their own structure. If you want them to sit straight, you need to change their structure so that, in a relaxed state, when “following the path of least resistance” they naturally sit with good posture. Otherwise you are simply pushing a rock up a hill, if you only tell them to sit up straight. So ... how do you change their structure? Depending on what’s actually wrong with their posture, exercise alone may do the trick. We will cover some exercises that can help fix bad posture in this book. We are also going to look at causes and effects of bad posture. So let’s get started. www.chwc.com.au | Chiropractic Health & Wellness Centre 1 01 Chapter Why Good Posture is so Important Posture is very important because it helps to more evenly distribute the force of gravity throughout the body. The fact is a person with poor posture is more susceptible to back injury, headaches and other pain, and may experience a longer recovery time from an injury than someone with good posture. Postural misalignments can lead to early degenerative (osteoarthritis) changes in the spine, reduce your lung capacity, cause headaches, neck pain, numbness and pins and needles and a whole range of complications and problems. Keep this in mind: The spine has three natural curves – there is a forward curve at the neck … there is a backward curve at the upper back … and there is another forward curve at the lower back. Good posture, in which your spine will aligned over your pelvis, maintains these natural curves and leads to pain-free mobility. Poor posture on the other hand pulls on muscles and creates pain. Looking Good … Feeling Good Yes, having good posture can improve the way you look; it can also help you to feel good as well. Here’s how: good posture promotes strength, flexibility and balance in the body. If any these of things gets “out of whack” it can lead to muscle pain. Proper posture also reduces stress on your muscles and ligaments, which in turn lessens your risk of injury. Banish Bad Posture Banish Bad Posture www.chwc.com.au | Chiropractic Health & Wellness Centre Let’s take a closer look at some of the more common and more painful effects of bad posture: Back Pain One of the most common causes of lower back pain is poor sitting posture. The strain on the back while sitting in a slouched position can cause excessive pressure on the joints, muscles and discs. You see, posture can cause repetitive strain which causes microtrauma to accumulate, which ultimately leads to sudden failure. Here is an example: An office worker sits all day every day. While they have breakfast, while they drive to work, at their desk, watching TV. They are normally busy, but they are not active. Over time this means key postural muscles like the buttocks, abdominal core and lower back start to weaken. Because they are in a sitting position, their hip flexors start to shorten and go tight. This starts to compress the disc, which slowly over time breaks down and becomes weak. Then one day the disc becomes so weak, it can’t cope anymore and the slightest thing can trigger it to collapse. Ever heard the saying “the straw that broke the camel’s back”? Well, that’s what we are talking about here. Chapter 1 | Why Good Posture is so Important 2 Banish Bad Posture www.chwc.com.au | Chiropractic Health & Wellness Centre 3 Basic types of lower back pain There are three basic types of lower back pain: Piriformis Syndrome This is probably the easiest to treat, but even so it can takes months to heal if not treated properly. This condition involves a small muscle in the buttocks called the “piriformis” which spasms and clamps down on the sciatic nerve. People suffering from this generally report a dull ache in the backside with pain that radiates (shoots) down the leg. Sitting for long periods of time tends to make this worse, and so does climbing stairs and walking up hills. Piriformis Syndrome Normally simply stretching the piriformis muscle will relieve the symptoms. Here is what you need to do: Cross the painful leg across the other knee - so you are making a figure 4. Gently lean forward until you feel a stretch in your buttocks on the side of the sciatica. Once you feel the stretch, pause for 20 seconds. Relax, take a breath, and repeat 2 more times. If this stretch relieves your pain there is a good chance you have Piriformis Syndrome. Chapter 1 | Why Good Posture is so Important 3 Banish Bad Posture www.chwc.com.au | Chiropractic Health & Wellness Centre Disc injury This is the most common cause of sciatica - a lumbar (lower back) disc bulge or herniation. Between your vertebrae (spinal bones) there are soft discs. Inside the discs are a jelly like substance, which is surrounded by layers of ligaments, like layers in an onion. If this jelly breaks through those ligaments it can compress the lumbar nerve roots which feed into the sciatic nerve. If your sciatica is caused by a disc injury, you will normally notice the following: 1. Pain when you cough/sneeze 2. Severe pain when trying to get out of bed that tends to get better as you get moving and warmed up. 3. Bending forward increases the pain 4. You are stuck leaning to one side and can’t seem to straighten up 5. Weakness and/or numbness in your big toe Chapter 1 | Why Good Posture is so Important 4 Banish Bad Posture www.chwc.com.au | Chiropractic Health & Wellness Centre Spinal Stenosis This means that the bones themselves are pressing on either your spinal cord or the nerve root. If you have Spinal Stenosis, you will probably experience the following: • Burning pain in the legs and feet that increases with walking/ activity - often after walking only 100 metres or so. You get almost instant relief by bending forward at the waist, squatting down or sitting. • You may notice difficulty coordinating your legs - you might find your not as balanced as you used to be and tend to stumble and trip. • You may see wasting and atrophy (shrinking) of the muscles in your legs. Putting yourself in the spinal decompression position (laying on your back with knees and hips bent) may help - but you will need to seek treatment in the case of Spinal Stenosis. Less severe Spinal Stenosis can occur at the intervertebral foramen (the space the nerves come out of the spine). A lot of the time, a person will say they felt fine, they bent over to tie their shoes and got sudden severe pain. It lasts around 48 hours and the pain disappears. This often occurs every couple of months or so. We will talk about ways to improve posture and relieve back pain later in this book. First let’s look at another consequence of bad posture – headaches. Chapter 1 | Why Good Posture is so Important 5 Banish Bad Posture www.chwc.com.au | Chiropractic Health & Wellness Centre Headaches Bad posture can be a frequent cause of tension headaches as well as jaw aches and shoulder aches. Behold the 19kg head! The more you slouch – the harder your body and clench. This clenching causes the muscles has to work. Can you imagine having to carry of the face to tighten, which is a common an extra 19kgs on your shoulders – every day? cause of tension headaches and often gives That’s what its like for people with ‘forward people jaw pain as well. head posture’. This inevitably leads to sore, tense and aching shoulders, neck problems, People with forward head posture often report headaches, pins and needles in the hands and getting headaches, neck and shoulder pain even reduces your lung capacity! that gets worse through the day. Many will As an experiment sit up straight, and take in even notice a large prominent ‘bump’ at the the biggest breath you can manage. Notice base of their neck. how much air your lungs take in. Now exhale In most cases all of this is correctable with the and jut your head as far forward as you can. right treatment and right advice. Take in the biggest breath you can. Notice how much less air you can take in? More and more though, we are seeing this condition in adolescents and teenagers. This Well that’s what it’s like for people with forward is the result of increased screen time, and head posture- all day every day! less physical activity. In fact, its becoming so common it’s even got its own name We have also found that when the body is now – “Text Neck”. hunched over, the jaw is more likely to tighten Chapter 1 | Why Good Posture is so Important 6 www.chwc.com.au | Chiropractic Health & Wellness Centre 7 02 Chapter What Causes Bad Posture? There are a variety of causes of bad posture.