Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.
As a chiropractor, posture is of great importance in my
evaluation of a patient. Your posture tells me a lot about your work habits,
your sleep habits and your sitting and standing tendencies. There are three basic areas of posture:
general posture, sitting posture and standing posture. Being aware of your body
position in all stages can be the difference between daily pain and no pain at
all.
This plandemic has forced many people to work from home. Most thought it would just be for a short while. Well, we can all see how that turned out! Now, many are faced with home working environments ill-equipped at facilitating good working posture. Very few people have good work stations set up ergonomically correct, at their home. When I hear people say “I work at the dining room table,” or “I sit on the couch,” or “I use the bar stool at the counter,” I immediately know those postures are creating issues of pain somewhere in that patient.
Static posture, how you hold yourself when not moving, and
dynamic posture, how you hold yourself while moving, are the two obvious
general postures. Both types of posture are related to each other since each
affects the other.
General posture is influenced by many things, including:
heredity, pain, flat feet, previous injuries that haven’t healed correctly,
prolonged standing or sitting, obesity, and media usage (tech neck).
So how do you improve general posture? You must actively be
mindful of your posture doing everyday activities like watching TV, washing
dishes or walking.
You need to stay active. Any kind of exercise can help
improve your posture. But there are certain types of exercise that are
particularly helpful. Exercises where body awareness comes into play such as
yoga type movements, tai chi, Pilates and specific core strengthening routines
are especially good for posture control.
Maintaining a healthy weight will help your posture. We’ve
all seen the men with “Milwaukee goiters” hanging out the front! This causes
your entire body to lean backwards to balance out the bulge in the front. This
is also naturally occurring during pregnancy. The bigger the baby gets the more
altered posture occurs. Hence, why pregnant women often have lots of back pain.
Flat and over pronating feet creates a postural distortion from
the feet to the head. You should be wearing comfortable low-heeled shoes with
good arch support, preferably orthotics with 3 arch support system.
Your work posture is critical. We spend a majority of our
days in whatever work position you have. It should be comfortable and fit your
body. Obviously building houses and laying concrete are significantly different
than industrial line work and computer work. Some things are within your
control, others are not. The idea is to
fix what you can to keep yourself well.
In the next article, we will look specifically at sitting
posture and standing posture, and how to improve in each area to best assure
less pain.