Wednesday, September 26, 2001

Good posture important for good health

Throughout the ages good posture has been a symbol of elegance, grace, vitality and even nobility.

Ancient cultures placed a high value on good posture and would practice good postural habits. Posture was important.

This is not so today. Despite being chided by our parents and grandparents to sit up straight and not slump, our posture is getting worse. Modern society with all its technology is putting demands on our physical frames that are leading us down the road to poor posture. Even our children routinely strain their posture by carrying heavy backpacks and slouching in front of a computer or TV.

As it turns out, there's more to good posture than just looking good; it's also important to our health in a number of ways.

Poor posture wastes energy. Good posture places your body in a gravity neutral position. When you're hunched forward or when your posture is otherwise not properly aligned, your body expends extra energy in order to offset this pull of gravity.

Poor posture causes pain. When you have poor posture, you abnormally load your muscles, ligaments and joints. This abnormal loading eventually leads to muscular pain, especially in the neck, shoulders and low back. Headaches and fatigue are also quite often caused by poor posture.

Poor posture leads to osteoarthritis. When you have poor posture, you also abnormally load spinal bones. Over time, these bones degenerate because of this abnormal pressure. As the spinal joints begin to weaken, they begin to fuse together in order to offset the degeneration.

Poor posture leads to traumatic disk injuries. The cummulative trauma of poor posture adds up on skeletal tissues to the point where an innocent movement, like bending down to pick up the newspaper or a small child, can cause the disk to bulge, herniate or rupture.

Poor posture accelerates the aging process. Poor posture compresses the body's organs, which leads to decreased blood flow; this decreases the amount of oxygen going to the organs. This reduction in oxygen leads to diminished function and self-repair, which accelerates the aging process.

Poor posture affects the entire nervous system. Your spine is the home for your spinal cord. When you have good posture, your spine is properly aligned, and your spinal cord is relaxed and allowed to operate the way it was designed. When you have poor posture, your spinal cord is being stretched into abnormal positions, which disrupts the normal state of the nervous system.

Clearly, good posture is critical for good health. The problem is that you can't simply have good posture by thinking about it.

When you consciously try to sit up straight or stand with your head up and shoulders back, you are using large muscle groups to hold yourself up. This requires a lot of energy.

The muscles ultimately fatigue and you slump back to the way you were. When you have good posture, you are in a gravity neutral position, so you don't have to use any muscles or energy to hold yourself up against gravity.

The good news is that it is possible to change your body in such a way that you can have healthy posture without having to consciously think about it. Postural analysis can identify which muscles and ligaments in your body have become weak or stretched as a result of your particular posture.

Postural analysis can also identify whether poor posture is contributing to pain and other health problems. A combination of spinal correction, stretching and posture specific exercises can be used to relieve pain, strengthen your body and restore proper posture.

Dr. Edward Finucan is a Board Certified Chiropractor with additional training and expertise in his area of specialty, Chiropractic Biophysics - the connection between posture and pain. He is also a licensed Injury Prevention Consultant. In addition to providing chiropractic care at his office, Advanced Chiropractic Health Center in Peachtree City, he speaks to businesses and community organizations on the topics of posture, pain relief, ergonomics, running and how to prevent sports-related injuries. For an appointment or for free information call 770-632-1995.