Having good posture is one of the most vital things you can do for your body to help keep your body’s structure healthy in the long-term, this is true for the spine as it is for the internal organs. We’ve most likely all been told at some point in our lives not to slouch, while this may seem unimportant to us at the time it can also aid the healthy function of our organs, improve your digestion, all the while supporting our muscles and joints of the spine and limbs.

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What is good posture?

While you’re standing still, your body will have a natural way that it will hold itself. With the force of gravity bearing down on us, having good posture will mean that force will evenly distribute throughout our body. If you have poor posture, this may result in you experiencing various aches, pains or even injury due to more pressure being exerted or focused onto a certain part of the body compared to another. Although you may not have the traditional image of the exaggerated hunched back, you may have been told your head goes forward and simply holding your head more upright or tucking your chin will correct the problem. For some people this advice will work to make you more aware of your posture and will be enough on its own to help the problem.

Unfortunately, your posture itself cannot give a reliable indication of your spinal structure. In this way, poor posture is unlikely to cause back pain, but it is the cumulative effects over time that bad posture has on your spine that causes back pain. First, we need to understand what a normal spine looks like. If you undergo an x-ray or MRI for your spine, and a doctor says you have a lordosis – this is normal and is simply the smooth curve in either your lower back or neck. If you have too much curve in your lower back or neck, they will refer to this as hyperlordosis. This is something clearly visible on a normal x-ray but chances are if you did a physical examination, the results at times can be very misleading. By comparison, a smooth curve in your mid-back is called a kyphosis.

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Why ‘Chin Tucking’ May Not Solve the Problem

What many would usually class as poor posture would be leaning your shoulders forward, with the mid-back rounded and head protruding forwards. In this particular case, the curve in the neck would be preserved, but will result in too much curve in the mid-back (known as hyperkyphosis). In this case, fixing the problem will require correctional work to pull the cervical spine back so that it is above the shoulders. This will dramatically reduce the pressure on the lower back and technically a bit easier to solve than many other spinal or back misalignments.

At The Mayfair Clinic, the secondary variation on this kind of postural irregularity we have seen more in women than in men, although research on this front has not been proven. In this variety, the spine becomes very straight, with the head carried forward. Now if a patient with this type of spine were to follow the above advice and perform a chin tuck, they would find this would bring the head position backwards but make the spine completely straight. If this happened, there is little that is able to cushion this spine or absorb impact even in simple daily activities like walking, sitting or running. Imagine jumping with your legs entirely straight rather than bending them to absorb the impact and you may be able to understand why the curves in your spine are vital. The difficulty with this condition is that, when it comes to correcting the spine, there are multiple points that need to be targeted to properly make a correction and improvement in your alignment. The head would need to be brought forward first, followed by using a device or treatment to introduce curvature back into the area, and the same would need to be done for the lower back. As you can imagine, both curves are connected and changes have an impact on the relationship between the two. This is why we regularly look at both neck and lower back curves at the same time.

Our Treatment for Spinal Misalignment

For spinal misalignments, we have two different kinds of treatments to rehabilitate the area. Spinal Impulse Adjusting Technology can encourage the spine back into a more optimal alignment. It can also help to relieve any stiffness that can occur when the spine has become compromised through misalignment.

Once movement is no longer restricted and our expert team are happy you are recovering well, we may recommend a spinal orthotic as the best course of action to restore the spine to a normal position, drastically reducing the risk of excess wear and tear; also known as arthritis of the spine.

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Spinal Orthotics are prescribed by our team to be used in a very specific location of the spine in order to encourage a healthy curve back into the spine. Used daily on a flat surface, this device can extend your recovery beyond the clinic, to achieve results that last in the long term.

A solution for bad posture, and the neck & shoudler pain it causes.

Has anybody ever told you that you have bad posture? Do you feel yourself constantly having to be aware of your posture or perhaps you feel like your back pain has been as a result of years of posture issues – we may have the solution for you. Remember that if you decide to look up postural corrections at home, or seek the advice of a professional who uses solely a physical assessment to recommend exercises – be extremely wary as you may end up doing more damage in the long term.

For expert advice, a diagnosis and a possible answer to all your back concerns, contact our team today on 0203 947 3222. We are able to offer an examination, diagnosis, the possibility of x-rays and a treatment all included in our initial consultation fee of £250.

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