Can Poor Posture Lead to Chronic Back Pain?

Good posture keeps your body in alignment with your musculoskeletal system to provide stability and efficiency in movement and at rest. Good posture is essential for your health, while bad posture can lead to chronic pain in your neck and back.

At Ageless Regenerative Medical, our team understands the need for posture in your everyday life. Dr. Nicholas Sieveking, MD and Jan Stanley, RN, MS, offer osteopathic manual manipulation to help ease back pain related to spinal misalignment.

What is Bad Posture?:

Posture is how you hold your body while sitting or standing. It describes the alignment of your spine with other parts of your body, like your hips, head, and shoulders.

Just like there's no perfect body, there isn't an ideal type of posture. Everyone is different, meaning they have a specific way of holding their posture for optimal alignment and support.

However, if your spine begins to move out of alignment with your hips, head, and shoulders, you're likely experiencing poor posture. Poor posture stresses your muscles and joints, leading to pain and stiffness.

Bad posture also affects your balance and reduces flexibility in your tendons and ligaments. Although poor posture is typical, it can cause your confidence and appearance problems.

The longer you let poor posture go, the more your body suffers. Several forms of bad posture include kyphosis, forward head, flatback, and swayback.

All of these types of posture can affect your health. You may experience gastrointestinal problems or chronic pain in your neck and back from poor posture.

How Posture Affects Your Back:

Although you may feel pain in other areas when you have poor posture, your spine is the main part of your body that suffers. Over time, poor posture strains your spine's muscles, intervertebral discs, and facet joints.

You must look at your posture if you suffer from chronic back pain and don't recall an injury. Some of the ways poor posture affects your back include:

• Hunching over leads to decreased blood flow to your abdominal and back muscles, leading to stiffness and weakness in your trunk and low back.
• Sitting with poor posture increases stress on the intervertebral discs, causing disc herniation over time.
• Posture is vital when you're lifting heavy objects. Incorrect lifting technique leads to lumbar disc herniation and chronic back and leg pain.
• Laying on your stomach for an extended period alters your spine's curvature, leading to chronic pain in your back and hips.

Even minor problems with your posture can lead to significant issues over time. Holding the correct posture takes much less effort than slumping or hunching over constantly.

Correcting Your Posture for Less Back Pain:

Luckily, you can quickly correct posture with a few simple changes and be constantly aware of how you're holding your body. Dr. Sieveking recommends several tips to improve your posture to decrease your pain, including:

• Move around: Sitting or standing in one position for too long causes your muscles to become fatigued, leading to poor posture. You must get up and move around at least once an hour to reduce strain on your body and improve your posture.
• Walk tall: While walking, try to hold your head tall and keep your shoulders relaxed. Look straight forward and attempt to keep your spine straight in alignment. With each step, land on your heel and gently roll onto your toes to push off to the next step.
• Get exercise: Exercise helps you build strength and flexibility in the core muscles that support your spine. Try the superman, planks, and leg extensions to work your abdominal muscles. Work on neck extensions and shoulder stretches to improve your upper body posture.
• Check your desk: If you work at a desk often, ensure your computer is at eye level to reduce strain on your neck. You should also sit with your shoulders square and your arms at a 90-degree angle. You also want to keep your spine in a neutral position.

You must also work on your lifting posture to prevent injury to your back. You should never lift with your back; instead, use your legs and core to reduce the strain on your spine.

To find out how to improve your posture for less back pain, call our office today. You can also request an appointment online.