Have you ever thought that the posture you adopt while sitting, walking, lying down and other daily routine tasks, may be incorrect and lead to long term effects?
If you adopt and maintain bad posture for a prolonged period of time, it may result in a negative outcome for your health. Below we’ll discuss some negative health effects of bad posture.
1) Poor Circulation
Poor body posture may lead to a compromised blood supply to various body parts. Sitting with one’s legs crossed is one example of bad posture that may affect blood supply. In this pose, the pressure of gases and fluids moving through our body is increased.
If you adopt this posture for a prolonged period of time, it can lead to spider veins on the lower extremities and lower back pain. Thus, it is recommended that you adopt a good posture when you stand up straight and sit up straight, and have enough back support to do so.
2) Enhanced Stress
The side effects of bad posture are increased mental and physical stress. When you suffer from physical stress on the body, it leads to body aches and soreness, and is further converted to mental stress.
According to a study, sitting in an upright posture may be a behavioural adaptation to help improve resilience to physical and mental stress. Poor posture also enhances the level of cortisol in the body and diminishes testosterone levels.
3) Aches and Soreness
Adopting a slouching posture can cause muscle fatigue as muscles are stressed and have to work harder. Generalized body aches and soreness are the common side effects of bad posture that are often ignored but they can result in long term health problems.
Lumbar pain is commonly caused by bad posture because a lot of extra stress and strain is exerted to the lower part of the vertebral column when you have bad posture.
4) Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
The nerves present in your cervical region control the motor function of your hands, wrists, arms, etc. Bad posture has a negative impact on these nerve roots, sometimes leading to nerve compression. If the nerves of the wrist impinge, this will result in carpal tunnel syndrome. Muscles become stiff and taut, and you may suffer from pain, numbness and tingling sensations.
5) Loss of Motivation
In some people, poor posture may be correlated with having less confidence, which in turn can be linked to lower motivation levels.
6) Poor Digestion
Poor posture may also have consequences that include your digestive tract. When you are hunched over and in slouching position, your viscera bunch up together.
Thus, it becomes difficult for the body to properly digest the food. This can lead to constipation. It also has a harsh impact on your metabolism and in the end it affects your physiological body processes, potentially placing one at risk of developing life-threatening metabolic problems.
7) Fatigue
When you adopt a poor posture, your body works harder to keep you in an upright position, and ultimately you’ll feel tiredness and fatigue.
8) Sleep Problems
According to research, bad posture has a negative impact on your sleeping ability. The logic behind this is, we’ll not be able to relax completely if our muscular system is not aligned properly.
9) Low Mood
Most of the people think that how one sits or stands is completely isolated from one’s mood. But the posture of a person, especially a good posture, actually plays a significant role in the mental status of the person.
According to a study, the people who were habitual of sitting in a slumped posture, show more frequency of low mood, lower self-esteem and more fear than those who adopt a healthy upright posture.
10) Foot Pain
The misalignment that comes from improper posture may have a bad impact on your feet. Bad posture causes you to suffer from foot pain. Proper alignment of the back may make this issue go away.
11) Workout Recovery Issue
Bad posture also has a negative effect on your recovery time and workout routine. Some muscles bear extra stress when you adopt poor posture and are thus fatigued early.
This causes you to suffer more pain after a workout because the body is irritated and shows an inflammatory response.
12) High Blood Pressure
When you slouch while standing or you slump while sitting, you may end up with high blood pressure, according to a research held at the University of Leeds.
The rounding of your back and the rolling movement of your shoulders have a negative impact on your breathing. There are also some receptors in the neck that have a negative effect on your blood pressure.
13) Subluxation
A vertical subluxation happens when your vertebral column is misaligned, and has a bad impact on the overall integrity of the rest of the vertebral column. When this takes place, the subluxations leave a lot of stress on the back of a person. They also irritate the nerves present in the surrounding regions.
14) Nerve Constriction
When the position of the bones and vertebral column is altered due to long term effects of poor posture, the skeletal system starts to come in touch with the surrounding nerves and causes the pinching of nerves. This pinching of the nerves causes back pain and neck pain, as well as pain in the areas of the body which are supplied by these nerves.
15) Lower Back Pain
When you sit for a prolonged period of time in a bending forward position (watching T.V. or working in your office) your shoulders are pushed forward but your lower back is straight. Thus, the muscles of the lumbar region of your spine are strained and you start feeling lower back pain.
16) Headache
Poor alignment of your neck, shoulders, and back is a leading cause of neck pain and headache. A hunched posture exerts extra stress on the muscles of your neck to keep head in a straight position. Thus, muscles are strained and tense and you feel a headache.
Treatment & Prevention of Poor Posture
To relieve the negative effects from bad posture, the number one thing is to correct your posture and reduce the strain on your back.
Although that may not always be possible, as is the case with conditions that alter the curvature of the spine, such as kyphosis, swayback, or flatback, it is still possible to reduce the pain that occurs as a result. This can be achieved by stretching out the spine with a device like the Backrack.
Backrack Spinal Decompression Device
Author: Spinal Backrack