Poor Posture
Many symptoms, including pain, may be moderated or eliminated by good posture.
Poor Posture Affects You
Your poor posture can be affecting you more than you think. "It's a common and important health problem among Americans, and it can lead to neck pain, back problems, and other aggravating conditions," according to Meghan Markowski, a physical therapist at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital. Your posture affects every physiological function from breathing to normal hormonal production. Typically, back pain and neck pain are at the top of the list due to poor posture, but other conditions, like headaches, can also be due to poor posture.
What Am I Doing That Is Causing My Poor Posture?
Typically, daily habits like poor posture in the workplace are one of the leading causes. Other things like how you use your smartphone, and even the stresses of life can contribute to poor posture. A past athletic injury or a car accident can lead to a misalignment of the spine, forcing you to sit or stand in a way that changes your posture in a negative fashion.
The Traditional Medical Approach
“Despite considerable evidence that posture affects physiology and function, the significant influence of posture on health is not addressed by most physicians” according to the American Journal of Physical Medicine. The reason for this is that most physicians are not trained to evaluate the health of the spine as a part of their evaluation.
Why Chiropractic Can Help
One of the reasons that Chiropractic care is well suited to help correct poor posture is that most people suffering with poor posture also have misaligned bones in their spines called subluxations (and don't even know it). These misalignments in your structural system put stress on your nerves, bones, ligaments, discs, tendons, muscles, tissues and internal organs. Your nervous system coordinates and organizes your entire body and its proper functioning is essential for physical and neurological health. A doctor of chiropractic is specially trained to locate and correct spinal misalignment and help restore normal posture. Much like an orthodontist uses braces to straighten teeth over time, chiropractors use specific adjusting techniques (like Chiropractic Biophysics), traction and manual therapies to correct spinal alignment and posture over time.