Tissue damage largely comes from three sources: overuse, underuse, and acute injury. In the case of poor posture, overuse and underuse both play a roll. If you accumulate enough tissue damage, you get the treaded trifecta of pain, tightness, and weakness. Improve your posture and you’ll experience less pain, tightness, and generally become stronger where it matters the most.
5 Tips to Improve Your Posture:
While there are a million different devices out there that are meant to sell you on improving your posture, the onus is largely on you and a quality healthcare practitioner to make long lasting changes. Keep your hard-earned money in your pocket when it comes to expensive braces, fancy gadgets you’ve seen on Facebook ads, or that thing Susan in HR swears by from the Home Shopping Network. Use these tips to actually learn how to improve your posture.
- Take micro-breaks: By moving around, we will function more optimally. Humans weren’t made to be in a static position for extended periods of time. We were meant to move and express ourselves through motion! Whether you’re at a sitting or standing desk, moving around every 20-30 minutes. This will prevent your posture from breaking down in the first place.
- Breathe well: That thing you do 10,000 times a day can affect your posture tremendously. Try this: sit slouched and take a massive breath in through your shoulders. It’s pretty easy. It almost encourages you to remain slouched. Try the same thing, except, breathe through your belly and lower ribcage. It’s tougher. It forces you to sit up taller with your shoulders in a neutral position. If you think of your breath like an exercise, it’s easy to see how 10,000 bad reps a day could groove bad posture.
- Get longer: Posture is your position of least resistance. It has to be easier for you to be in good posture than it is to be in a bad posture. Part of that is ensuring tissues that need flexibility are flexible. Finding a quality healthcare provider can help you properly identify and treat tissues that need length. Six months of at-home flexibility training can be done with a few treatments of hands-on work.
- Get stronger: Part of good posture becoming your position of least resistance is ensuring that the tissues that need strength and tone are strong enough. Again, a qualified healthcare provider can help properly identify and prescribe exercises for movement patterns that require more work. Leave that stretch you found on Instagram on Instagram. A good training practice to strengthen your core, lengthen your extremities, and therefore bulletproof your back, is Pilates.
- Do hard things well: Your resting posture is influenced by how you feel. Have a tough day, feel like an imposter, and you’ll be turtled up. Smash every item on your to-do list, feel satisfied with yourself, and not even a delay can prevent you from standing tall on the subway. Satisfaction isn’t given, it’s earned. Fix your bed, take the stairs, eat a salad, go the extra mile, and that posture will most certainly automatically improve.
If you want to do even more for your posture and health schedule an appointment with one of our chiropractors by calling us or filling out the form below.