Can you hear the voices in your head from your parents and/or teachers?

“Sit up straight.”

“Don’t slouch.”

Having good posture is so important and is sometimes overlooked as a health issue. Bad posture impacts most of the systems of the body:

Digestion and organ function – everything gets compressed in the torso making them work harder to function.

Respiratory – shortness of breath and not being able to fully breathe.

Circulation – blood pressure issues.

Skeletal – the “dowager’s hump” in the thoracic spine area. Hyper kyphosis develops slowly over time.

Muscle – imbalances between the left side and the right side, from the back to the front. If you sit a lot or have worked at a desk job, the muscles in the front get shortened and the muscles in the back get weak from overstretching.

Nerves – nerve impingement in the shoulder area.

The term “text neck” is now part of our everyday language. Hyper kyphosis (rounding of the thoracic spine) is being diagnosed in younger people because of how they are hunching over their devices.

What can we do to improve our posture?

1) Awareness – just being aware that maybe our posture is not that good and needs a bit of improvement.

2) Stretch – bringing some gentle stretching to the chronically tight muscles.

3) Strengthen – the weaker back muscles and our core, which provides stability.

4) Lengthen – sitting and moving with a lengthened spine.

5) Spinal Rejuvenation – moving the spine is the best thing you can do. Spinal discs have no blood supply and need movement to stay hydrated.