If you experience pain or tension across the top of your shoulders, back and shoulder blades, you most likely have poor posture. Do you spend a lot of time driving, sitting at work or at home? Sitting may be a reason for poor posture, but there are ways to help make sitting less stressful on your body. Try to keep your feet flat on the floor and avoid crossing one leg over the other. Crossing your legs may seem more comfortable, but this is due to an imbalance in your muscles you already have, and crossing one side may be adding to it. Keep your chin tucked in and head up. If you are working at a computer, keep it up at eye level. There are many different standing workstations available and I would definitely recommend one.

Stress from poor postural habits, along with all other stressors, produces stress on your nervous system. Your nervous system is what controls your postural muscles. When your muscles do not get the proper signal telling them what to do, such as holding you upright, you loss the ability to maintain proper posture. Now you are stuck in a cycle.

Poor Posture and Other Stressors= Nervous System Dysfunction=More Poor Posture.

There is now tension throughout your body and it recruits bigger non-postural muscles to help get you through the day. This creates much more energy expenditure causing fatigue, and due to the muscles being exhausted, symptoms of fibromyalgia, back/neck pain, and shoulder pain as I mentioned above. The good news is you can break this cycle. Focus on your posture and use the tips I gave above. However if you have nervous system dysfunction you can’t just force yourself into proper posture. You need to eliminate this interference causing the muscle dysfunction. Once you do this, maintaining a healthy posture becomes easy. Chiropractic adjustments in Abingdon and North Tazewell improve the function of your nervous system so you can function optimally and regain your posture!