Do you suffer from aches and stiffness in the area of your neck, shoulders, and upper back on a daily basis? Are you aware that most of it is a result of poor posture habits related to sitting, looking at our computers and phones, & driving? The real question – What are you doing to counter all those bad habits of rolling your shoulders forward and allowing your head/neck to creep ahead of the rest of your spine?
Our bodies adapt to how we hold it a majority of the time. Try this little experiment: squeeze a extremely tight fist for 1 minute. Now let it go and notice how your hand does not want to return back to the normal position for a while. It can be rather painful trying to straighten your hand out, isn’t it? We are essentially doing this with multiple areas of our body in more subtle ways.
If I want to slouch in a chair, holding my smart phone in my lap for extended periods of time day after day month after month, how do you think my normal, relaxed posture is going to look? With my shoulders rolled forward and up and my neck far ahead of my upper back, how does this affect the muscles connecting my neck and shoulders/upper back? They are going to be chronically held in a stretched or contracted state (upper traps/pecs are contracted and the shoulder retractor muscles are stretched and weak). The body will let you know that it does not enjoy it by sending you pain signals.
Knowing this information, you can use countering posture exercises to pull your posture back to where it is balanced. But, you have to do enough and be consistent with it that you convince the body that needs to change. This is exactly what I teach my patients. Go to this link: https://www.holistichoustondoctors.com/quick-posture-correction-exercise/ – (I recommend performing this exercise every few hours).
Call me, Dr. Shane Howell, at Alternative Health Management, if you would like some personalized treatment at 713-722-2580.
